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POLITICAL AND LITERARY 



ANECDOTES 



OP 



HIS OWN TIMES. 



is 



By DR. WILLIAM KING 

w 

PRINCIPAL OF ST. MARY HALL, OXON. 




PUBLISHED BY WELLS AND LILLY. 
1819, 



*^v«r\» v.\\iiVo,v 



^ 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



A friend, who was a long time a prisoner 
in France, met with the following work 
in the possession of two ladies, relatives 
of the writer, Dr. King. From the in- 
teresting passages which he was permitted 
to extract, the Editor conceived that the 
original might be well worthy of publica- 
tion ; he therefore desired his friend to 
procure it, and found, on a comparison of 
(he hand-writing with that which is well 
ascertained to be Dr. King's, in the ac- 
count-books of St. Mary Hall in Oxford 
(of which he was many years the princi- 
pal,) that there is every reason to suppose 
this MS. to have been written by Dr. 
King himself. From certain minute ad- 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

ditions and corrections of the language, 
there can be little doubt of its having 
been intended for publication. It con- 
tains a very striking character of the Pre- 
tender, and many interesting anecdotes 
of the Jacobite party, to which he was 
strongly attached, and with the leaders 
of which he was intimately acquainted. 
There will also be found in it an amusing 
jeu cTesprit called the Somnium Academi- 
cum, written in very pure Latin, for which 
he was much distinguished ; and many 
pleasant stories of the great men and lite- 
rary characters of his days, with some 
elegant criticism on the Latin poets. 
Having s,aid thus much on the history and 
contents of this publication, it will be 
necessary to add a short account of the 
writer for the instruction of those who 
may he ignorant of his name and character, 
* "Dr. William King, son of the Rev. 
Peregrine King, was born at Stepney, 

* From Chalmers' Biography. 



ADVERTISEMENT. ▼ 

in Middlesex, in 1 685 ; and, after a school 
education at Salisbury, was entered of 
Baliol College, Oxford, July 9, 170L 
Proceeding on the law line, he took his 
doctor's degree in 1715; was secretary to 
the Duke of Ormond and the Earl of 
Arran, when chancellors of the university ; 
and was made Principal of St. Mary Hall 
in 1718. When he was candidate for the 
univerbity, in 1722, he resigned his office 
of secretary ; but his other preferment he 
enjoyed (and it was all he did enjoy) to 
the time of his death. Dr. Claike, who 
opposed him, carried his election ; and, 
after this disappointment, 1727, he went 
over to Ireland. With what design he 
went thither is to us unknown ; but his 
enemies say, it was for the purposes of 
intrigue, and to expose himself to sale. 
But he says himself, and there are no 
facts alleged to disprove it, " at no time 
of my life, either in England or Ireland, 
1 * 



Vi ADVERTISEMENT. 

either from the present or any former 
government, have I asked, or endeavoured 
by any means to obtain, a place, pension, 
or employment of any kind. I could 
assign many reasons for my conduct; but 
one answer I have always ready : I in- 
herited a patrimony, which I found suffi- 
cient to supply all my wants, and to leave 
me at liberty to pursue those liberal 
studies which afforded me the most solid 
pleasures in my youth, and are the delight 
and enjoyment of my old age. Besides, 
I always conceived a secret horror of a 
state of servility and dependence : and I 
never yet saw a placeman or a courtier, 
whether in a higher or lower class, whether 
a priest or a layman, who was his own 
master." During his stay in Ireland, he 
is said to have written an epic poem, call- 
ed "The Toast," bearing the name of 
SchefFer, a Laplander, as its author, and 
of Peregrine O'Donald, Esq. as its transla- 
tor; which was a political satire, and was 



ADVERTISEMENT. Vn 

printed and given away to friends, but 
never sold. Dr. Warton says, that the 
Countess of New burgh was aimed at in 
this satire. 

"On the dedication of Radcliffe's li- 
brary, 1749, he spoke a Latin oration in 
the theatre at Oxford, which was received 
with the highest acclamations by a splen- 
did auditory. Mr. Warton, in " The 
Triumphs of Isis," pays him a very great 
compliment on that occasion. But this 
oration, which was soon after printed, did 
not meet with such favourable reception 
from the publick ; for he was attacked in 
several pamphlets on account of it, in 
which he was charged with writing bar- 
barous Latin, with being disaffected to the 
government, and that he instigated the 
younger members of the university to 
sedition and licentiousness ; very heavy 
accusations, if we may not candidly sup- 
pose them dictated by the spirit of male- 
volence and party zeal. And again, in 



viii ADVERTISEMENT. 

1755, when the memorable election con- 
test happened in Oxfordshire, his attach- 
ment to the old interest drew on him the 
resentment of the new. He was libelled 
in newspapers and in pamphlets, and 
charged with the following particulars, 
viz. that he was an Irishman ; that he had 
received subscriptions for books never 
published to the amount of 1500/. of which 
sum he had defrauded his subscribers; 
that he had offered himself to sale both in 
England and Ireland, and was not found 
worth the purchase ; that he was the writer 
of " The London Evening Post ;" the 
author of a book in Queen Anne's reign, 
entitled "Political Considerations," 1710, 
in which there was false English ; and of 
a book then just published, called " The 
Dreamer," 1754, 8vo. At this time he 
published his " Apology," in 4to. and plau- 
sibly vindicated himself from the several 
matters charged on him, except only the 
last article, of his being the author of 



ADVERTISEMENT. ix 

" The Dreamer ;" and warmly retaliated 
on bis adversaries. 

"He was the author of, 1. c * Miltoni 
epistola ad Pollionem" (Lord Polwarth). 
2. " Sermo Pedestris." 3. " Scamnum, 
ecloga." 4. u Tempi um libertatis," in 
three hooks. 5. " Ties Oratiuneulse." 
6. " Epistola objurgatoria." 7. " Anton- 
ietti ducis Corscorum epistola ad Corscos 
de rege eligendo." 8. " Eulogium Jacci 
Etonensis." 9. " Aviti epistola ad Peril- 
lam, virginem Scotam," &c. 10. " Orati- 
uncula habita in domo convocations Oxon. 
cum epistola dedicatoria," 1757, and " Epi- 
taphium Richardi Nash." Besides these, 
he published the first five volumes of Dr. 
South's sermons. — He was known and es- 
teemed by the first men of his time for 
wit and learning ; and must be allowed to 
have been a polite scholar, an excellent 
orator, and an elegant and easy writer, 
both in Latin and English. He died Dec. 
30, 1763, having sketched his own charac- 



X ADVERTISEMENT. 

ter in an elegant epitaph, in which, while 
he acknowledges his failings, he claims the 
praise of benevolence, temperance, and 
fortitude. This epitaph was to be engrav- 
ed on a silver case, in which he directed 
his heart should be preserved in some 
convenient part of St. Mary Hall. He 
was buried in Ealing church, but the in- 
scription is on a marble tablet in the 
chapel of St. Mary Hall. There is a 
striking likeness of Dr. King in Worlidge's 
view of the installation of Lord Westmor- 
land as chancellor of Oxford, in 1761." 



FREFACEe 



I am now in my seventy-sixth year, 
and am often confined by the infirmi- 
ties which are incident to old age. 
In some of those hours the following 
work hath been a part of my amuse- 
ment ; I may properly call it an 
amusement, because it required no 
study, nor any continued application ; 
for, as it consists of detached pieces, 
a kind of table-talk, I could there- 
fore lay it aside and return to it when 
I pleased. Most of the anecdotes 
which I have inserted are from my 
own knowledge ; the rest were relat- 
ed to me by those friends on whose 



Xii PREFACE. 

honour and veracity I can depend. 
As to the observations which I have 
made on human life, the reflections 
on men and manners, and the re- 
marks on books and authors, they are 
my present sentiments, which I have 
delivered with an honest freedom, 
without pretending, however, to con- 
trol the judgment or opinion of any 
other person. 



ANECDOTES, $c. 



^Equanimity, or the cequus animus of Ho- 
race, which is neither elated by prosperi- 
ty, or depressed by any adverse fortune, 
is constitutional, and not to be acquired 
by philosophy or religion; 

I am likewise of opinion, that what 
we call Human Prudence is born with 
us; though, I confess, it may be greatly 
assisted and improved by experience and 
observation. 

A benevolent man, endowed with hu- 
man prudence, and with that equality of 
mind I have before mentioned, constitutes 
bis own happiness, cone iliates the affection 
of all about him, and may always be the 
most useful member in any society. But 
a man, in whom these qualities are united, 
is scarce to be found amongst half a 
million : and in the course of a long life 
2 



14 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

I cannot recollect more than one or two 
examples. 

I have an equal mind, and generally 
very good spirits; and, if I do not mis- 
take myself, I have a good heart: but I 
have a very small portion of human pru- 
dence. And for want of this excellent 
quality, 1 have twice in my life lost the 
opportunity of acquiring a very large for- 
tune in the most irreproachable manner. 
It has been owing to the same defect, that 
my patrimony hath been so ill managed, 
and so much impaired. I have run myself 
into many inconveniences. I have made 
enemies when I did not intend to give the 
least offence, and I have suffered much 
by family misfortunes; all which a little 
human sagacity and foresight would easily 
have prevented. However let me be 
ever thankful to Divine Providence, that 
I have never wanted the necessaries, nor 
even the comforts of life : and what has 
given me a very singular pleasure, I have 
always been able to spare something to 
assist a poor friend. 

The King of Arragon made a very 
good judgment of human life when he 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 15 

said, There were only four things in the 
world worth living for, Old wine to 

DRINK, OLD WOOD TO BURN, OLD BOOKS 
TO READ, and OLD FRIENDS TO CONVERSE 

w t ith. And a greater king than Alphon- 
sus, after having enjoyed all the pleasures 
and the utmost felicity this world was 
capable of providing for him, pronounced 
the whole to be Vanity. I have asked 
many of my acquaintance this question, 
Whether, if a power of living their lives 
over again were granted to them, they 
would accept it? and I never heard one 
man of sense answer in the affirmative. 
Select a person, who, according to the 
estimate of human happiness, is the happi- 
est of all mortals, who in appearance is 
possessed of every thing that can satisfy 
his senses or gratify his passions, I will 
venture to affirm, (hat he is in pursuit of 
something, which is at a great distance 
from him, and when he has obtained it, he 
will want something else, which perhaps 
he never can obtain. But if his good for- 
tune should reach this last something, 
which is to complete his felicity, then ask 
him again if he would be willing to go 



16 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

back to his infancy, and act the very same 
parts in life a second time ; and I much 
doubt whether he would undertake the 
labour, although he were to be reward- 
ed at the end of it with Mahomet's para- 
dise. # 

I hope that I shall not offend orthodoxy, 
as it is not inconsistent with the religion 
which I profess, if I assert, that this world 
is a place of punishment, as well as a place 
of trial ; which is a proposition, I think, 
that will almost admit of a mathematical 
demonstration. 

A presence of mind is a very rare, 
but a very happy and useful talent, and 

* Since I wrote this, I perceive that the learned 
M. Maupertuis hath confirmed my opinion. Who, 
gays he, would choose to live his life over again, and 
to pass through the same individual scenes? The 
author of a book published last year, entitled Vari- 
ous Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Provi- 
dence, endeavours to answer this question and con- 
fute M. Maupertuis's proposition. His answer is 
ingenious, but very unsatisfactory. He reasons from 
data which cannot be allowed him. A better argu- 
ment than any he hath used would have been to 
assure his readers, That he himself would be glad to 
live his life over again, 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 17 

is a certain guard against many mischiefs 
and inconveniences, to which human life 
is continually exposed. It is something 
very different from impudence, or a vain 
assurance. A presence of mind is always 
well hied, and is generally accompanied 
with wit and courage. Amongst all my 
acquaintance I cannot recollect more than 
three persons who were eminently possess- 
ed of this quality, Dr. Atterbury, Bishop 
of Rochester, the Earl of Stair, who was 
our ambassador in France the beginning of 
the last reign, and Dr. James JVIoisro, 
who was many years physician of Bethlem 
hospital. 

In 1715 I dined with the DuKErof Or- 
monde at Richmond. We were fourteen 
at table. There was my Lord Mark, my 
Lord Jersey, my Lord Arran, my Lord 
Landsdown, Sir William W 7 yndham, 
Sir Redmond Everard, and Atterbury, 
Bishop of Rochester. The rest of the 
company I do not exactly remember. 
During the dinner there was a jocular dis- 
pute (I forget how it was introduced) con- 
cerning short prayers. Sir William 
W t yndham told us, that the shortest pray- 
2* 



18 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

er he had ever heard was the prayer of a> 
common soldier just before the battle of 
Blenheim, ' O God, if there be a God, save 
my soul, if I have a soul T This was fol- 
lowed by a general laugh. I immediately 
reflected that such a treatment of the sub- 
ject was too ludicrous, at least very im- 
proper, where a learned and religious pre- 
late was one of the company. But I 
had soon an opportunity of making a dif- 
ferent reflection. Atterrury, seeming 
to join in the conversation, and applying 
himself to Sir William Wyjndham, said 
"Your prayer, Sir William, is indeed 
very short : but I remember another as 
short, but a much better, offered up like- 
wise by a poor soldier in the same circum- 
stances, < O God, if in the day of battle I 
forget thee, do thou not -forget me P " This, 
as Atterbury pronounced it with his 
usual grace and dignity, was a very gentle 
and polite reproof, and was immediately 
felt by the whole company. And the 
Duke of Ormoi\de, who was the best bred 
man of his age, suddenly turned the dis- 
course to another subject 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 19 

Cardinal Polignac, the author of the 
Anti Lucretius, was a fine gentleman, as 
well as an elegant and polite scholar. He 
had a most engaging affability, and a pecu- 
liar art and manner of obliging every man, 
who was introduced to him, to lay aside all 
restraint. I had not been with him a quar- 
ter of an hour, when I found myself as easy 
as if I had been educated in his family. 
We had some talk of his Anti Lucretius, 
and I took that opportunity of compliment- 
ing him upon a small specimen of that work, 
which has been published m the Biblio- 
theque Choisis, or some oilier of the litera- 
ry journals. " That specimen," said the 
Cardinal, " which you have read, was pub- 
lished by Monsieur Le Clerc. He im- 
portuned me for a sight of my MS. which 
I refused him, as I had always resolved that 
this poem should not appear till after wy 
death. However, to gratify Le Clerc's 
curiosity, I repeated to him those verses 
(about 150), which he hath published. I 
repeated them once only; and yet he was 
able to carry them away in his memory, 
although he was then seventy years old." 
I should have inclined to believe that the 



20 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Cardinal had been deceived, and that Le 
Clepc had by some means got at the MS. 
if I had not known in my own family a 
most amazing instance of the strength of 
memory. 

The Cardinal observing that during din- 
ner I drank only water, and being told I 
never drank any other liquor, said, turn- 
ing to me, "Whilst I was ambassador at 
.Rowland since my return to France, I 
have entertained more than five hundred 
of your countrymen, and you are the only 
water d. inker I have found in the whole 
number." This was in September 1737. 
There is an excellent print of the Cardi- 
nal, engraved by Chereau, from a picture 
of . 

A man, who has contracted the perni- 
cious habit of drinking drams, is conscious 
that he is taking in a slow poison, and 
therefore he will never own, it either to 
his friend or his physician, though it is 
visible to all his acquaintance. Pope and 
I, with my Lord Orrery and Sir Harry 
Bediimgfield, dined with the late Earl of 
Burlington. After the first course Pope 
grew sick, and went out of the room. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 21 

When dinner was ended, and the cloth re- 
moved, my Lord Burlington said he 
would go out, and see what was become 
of Pope. And soon after they returned 
together. But Pope, who had been cast- 
ing up his dinner, looked very pale, and 
complained much. My Lord asked him 
if he would have some mulled wine or a 
glass of old sack, which Pope refused. 
I told my Lord Burlington that he want- 
ed a dram. Upon which the little man 
expressed some resentment against me, 
and said he would not taste any spirits, 
and that he abhorred drams as much as I 
did. However I persisted, and assured 
my Lord Burlington that he could not 
oblige our friend more at that instant than 
by ordering a large glass of cherry-brandy 
to be set before him. This was done, 
and in less than half an hour, while my 
Lord was acquainting us with an affair 
which engaged our attention, Pope had 
sipped up all the brandy. Pope's frame of 
body did not promise long life ; but he 
certainly hastened his death by feeding 
much on high-seasoned dishes, and drink- 
ing spirits. 



22 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

A Presbyterian teacher, or one design- 
ed for t he office, though he changes his 
condition, and has an opportunity of con- 
versing with the politest men in the king- 
dom, yet he will always retain his original 
cant. Chandler, the popish Bishop of 
London, and Secker, Bishop of Oxford, 
are both converts from presbytery. They 
are frequent preachers ; but the cant of 
their education renders their discourses 
very disagreeable to a good ear. Their 
parts are moderate, and nearly equal ; but 
their characters are very different. Chan- 
dler is a real convert, and as void of all 
hypocrisy as he is free from pride and 
ambition. 

Praise is the strongest satire, and the 
most pleading: but it requires great art 
and judgment to manage and conduct an 
irony. I once said, talking on I his sub- 
ject with Dr. Swift, that the Rhapsody 
was the best satire he had ever composed. 
Tie assured me that immediately after this 
poem was published, he received a message, 
of thanks from the whole * : # # # # # . 
This I can easily conceive, as irony is not 
a figure in the German Rhetorick. If Mr. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 23 

Pope in the place, where he calls Lord 
Cobham a coward, had complimented a 
German Colonel with the same appella- 
tion, my little friend, I fear, would have 

fared very ill The Rhapsody would 

probably have continued to Dr. Swift 
the favour which it had acquired him, if 
Lord Harvey had not undeceived Q,. C. 
and taken some pains to teach her the use 
and power of the irony. 

The last time I dined with Dean Swift, 
which was about three years before he fell 
into that distemper which totally deprived 
him of his understanding, J observed, that 
he was affected by the wine which he 
drank, about a pint of claret. The next 
morning, as we were walking together in 
his garden, he complained much of his 
head, when I took the liberty to tell him 
(for I most sincerely loved him) that I 
was afraid he drank too much wine. He 
was a little startled, and answered, " that 
as to his drinking he had always looked on 
himself as a very temperate man ; for he 
never exceeded the quantity which his phy- 
sician had allowed and prescribed him." 
Now his physician never drank less than 
two bottles of claret after his dinner. 



24 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

The Earl of Chesterfield, who some 
years ago resigned his employment of 
Secretary of State, because he would not 
submit to be a cypher in his office, and 
work under a man who had not an hun- 
dredth part of his knowledge and under- 
standing, resolved to meddle no more in 
publick affairs. However he was lately so 
much disgusted with our bad measures, 
that he could not help animadverting on 
them, though in his usual calm and polite 
manner. His petition to the King is an 
excellent satire, and hath discovered to the 
whole nation, how, at a time when we are 
oppressed with taxes, and the common 
people every where grown mutinous for 
want of bread, the publick money is squan- 
dered away in pensions, generally bestow- 
ed upon the most worthless men. I fancy 
it was this witty petition, which furnished 
the Irish parliament will) the hint of form- 
ing so many honest resolutions concerning 
the great number of pensions, with which 
that kingdom is loaded. 

We are never grieved when a man of 
merit, or any one, who has done the least 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 23 

service to his country, is rewarded out of 
the piiblick treasure : but we cannot with- 
out great indignation behold a sum of 
money sufficient to maintain a large hospi- 
tal given annually to one great Lord to 
support his luxury, and to another to 
gratify his avarice. I am well assured 
that the present D. of D. has received 
more than two hundred thousand pounds 
in places and pensions since the accession 
of King George I., and vet it would be 
difficult to prove that this man had ever 
done any service or honour either \o his 
country or his benefactor. Upon reading 
my Lord Chesierfield's petition, I sent 
him this compliment : 

Quae venit e coelo monitoris ephfola Phoebi, 
Dicimus hanc satiram, cuite PmLtPPE, tuam. 

Hie etiam Phoeeo fortasse siraillimu3 esset, 
Qui rex iudignis munera nulla daret. 

Who amongst all the modern writers is 
to be more esteemed and admired than 
Monsieur Fexelox, Archbishop of Cam- 
bray, and author of Tdemachus ; whose 
piety, politeness and humanity, were equal 
to his great learning ? Ramsay, the au- 
3 



26 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

thor of Cyrus, who was educated in Mon- 
sieur Feinelon's family, acquainted me 
with an anecdote, which hath ever made 
me reverence the memory of this excel- 
lent man. Some German officers, who 
were prisoners at Cambray, were invited 
to dine with the Archbishop, whose table 
was always open to the officers of the 
French Garrison, of which a certain num- 
ber dined with him every day. The Ger- 
mans during the dinner were continually 
calling for bumpers of wine. The French 
seemed to sneer at this behaviour of the 
German officers, and looked on them 
with a kind of contempt : which Monsieur 
Fenelon observing, call for an half-pint 
glass of Burgundy, (which perhaps was 
more than he had ever taken at one meal 
before), and drank it off to the health of 
the prisoners. This was a handsome com- 
pliment to the Germans, and a proper re- 
primand to his own countrymen. But as 
soon as the German officers were gone, he 
thus admonished the French gentlemen. 
" You should endeavour to divest your- 
selves of all national prejudices, and never 
condemn the customs and manners of a 



OF HIS OWN TIiMES. 27 

foreign people, because they are altogeth- 
er different from your own. I am a true 
Frenchman, and love my country ; but I 
love mankind better than my country." 

The Duke of Orleans, who was re- 
gent of France during the minority of the 
present King Lewis the XVth, was most 
debauched in his life and abandoned in 
his morals. And yet he appeared to be 
a prince of great humanity, and a lover 
of publick justice. When Count Horn 
was sentenced to be broke on the wheel, 
Duke D'Aremberg, and the whole fami- 
ly of Horn, applied to the Regent for 
a pardon. But not succeeding in this at- 
tempt, and finding the Regent inflexible, 
they requested that the Count's sentence 
might only be changed, and to avoid an 
ignominious death, which would be a last- 
ing stain in the whole family, that he 
might have the favour of being beheaded. 
But this likewise the Regent refused, and 
made this answer : " Count Horn is my 
relation as well as yours : but the infamy 
is not in the punishment, but in the 
crime." When the Prince of # # # # 
solicited the regent to pardon a murder, 



28 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

which he had commit ted, after having 
been pardoned for the same crime once or 
twice before ; " I will pardon you," says 
the Regent, " but take notice and keep 
this in your memory, I will certainly par- 
don the man, whoever he be, that kills 
you." This monitory had a proper effect, 
and put a stop to the barbarities of this 
Bourbon Prince, who presumed that his 
quality of Prince of the blood was a 
license for murder. These two answers 
of the Regent of France deserve to be 
written in letters of gold. 

Most of the commentators on the 
Greek and Roman poets think it sufficient 
to explain their author, and to give us the 
various readings. Some few indeed have 
made us remark the excellency of the 
poet's plan, the elegance of his diction, 
and the propriety of his thoughts, at the 
same time pointing out as examples the 
most striking and beautiful descriptions. 
Riizeus in his comment on Virgil certain- 
ly excelled all his fellow-labourers, who 
were appointed to explain and publish a 
series of the Roman classicks for the use of 
the Dauphin. His mythological, histbri- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 22 

cal, and geographical notes are a great 
proof of his learning and diligence. But 
he hath not entered into the spirit of the 
author, and displayed the great art and 
judgment of the poet, particularly his 
knowledge of men and manners. The 
learned Jesuit perhaps imagined that re- 
marks of this sort were foreign to the em- 
ployment of a commentator, or for some 
political reasons he might think proper to 
omit them. And yet, in my opinion, 
nothing could have been more instructive 
and entertaining, as his comment was 
chiefly designed for the use of a young 
prince. The JEnrid furnishes us with 
many examples to the purpose I mention. 
However, that I may be the better under- 
stood, the following remark will explain 
my meaning. In the beginning of the 
first book, Juno makes a visit to JEolus y 
and desires him to raise a storm and de- 
stroy the Trojan fleet, because she hated 
the whole nation on account of the judg- 
ment of Paris, or, as she was pleased to 
express herself, because the Trojans were 
her enemies. Gens inimica miht\ &c. Juno* 
was conscious that she asked god to 
3* 



30 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

oblige her by an act which was both un- 
just and cruel, and therefore she accom- 
panied her request with the offer of 
Deiopeia, the most beautiful nymph in her 
train : a powerful bribe, and such as she 
imagined JEolus could not resist. She 
was not disappointed : JEolus accepted her 
offer, and executed her commands as far 
as he was able. What I have to observe 
here, in the first place, is the necessity of 
that short speech, in which Juno addresses 
herself to JEolus. She had no time to 
lose. The Trojan fleet was in the Tuscan 
sea, sailing with a fair wind, and in a few 
hours would probably have been in a safe 
harbour. JEolus therefore answered in as 
few words as the goddess had addressed 
herself to him. But his answer is very 
curious. He takes no notice of the offer 
of Deiopeia, for whom upon any other oc- 
casion he would have thanked Juno upon 
his knees. But now, when she was given 
and accepted by him as a bribe, and as 
the wages of cruelty and injustice, he en- 
deavoured by his answer to avoid that im- 
putation, and pretended he had such a 
grateful sense of the favours which Juno 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. ST 

had formerly conferred on him, when she 
introduced him to Jupiter's table, that it 
was his duty to obey her commands on all 
occasions: 

Tuus, Regina, quod optes, 
Explorare labor; mihi jussa capessere fas est. 

And thus insinuated even to Juno herself, 
that this was the sole motive of his ready 
compliance with her request. T am here 
put in mind of something similar, which 
happened in Sir Robert Walpole's ad- 
ministration. He wanted to carry a ques- 
tion in the House of Commons, to which 
he knew there would be great opposition, 
and which was disliked by some of his 
own dependents. As he was passing 
through the Court of Requests, he met a 
member of the contrary party, whose ava- 
rice he imagined would not reject a large 
bribe. He took him aside, and said, 
" Such a question comes on this day ; give 
me your vote, and here is a bank bill of 
2000/. ;" which he put into his hands. 
The member made him this answer. "Sir 
Robert, you have lately served some of 



32 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

my particular friends ; and when my wife 
was last at court, the King was very gra- 
cious to her, which must have happened 
at your instance. I should therefore Ihink 
myself very ungrateful (putting the bank 
bill into his pocket) if 1 were to refuse the 
favour you are now pleased to ask me." 
This incident, if wrought up by a man of 
humour, would make a pleasant scene in 
a political farce. But to return to Virgil, 
The short conference between Juno and 
Molus is a sufficient proof of the poet's 
excellent judgment. It demonstrates his 
knowledge of the world, and more par- 
ticularly his acquaintance with the customs 
and manners of a great prince's court. 
Hence we may learn, that a bribe, if it be 
large enough, and seasonably offered, will 
frequently overcome the virtue and reso- 
lution of persons of the highest rank, and 
that the power of love and beauty will 
sometimes corrupt a god, and compel 
him to discover a weakness unworthy of 
a man. 

I HAVE A VENERATION for VlRGIL : I 

admire Horace: but I love Ovid. The 
Georgics is perhaps the most finished poem 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 33 

of all which are now extant in any lan- 
guage. The Odes of Horace are a mas- 
ter-piece, and beautiful beyond descrip- 
tion : where he has imitated Pindar (which 
he has done, I think, but once, in the 
beginning of that ode Quern virum aut 
Heroa, &c.) he has evidently excelled 
him. But neither of these great poets 
knew how to move the passions so well 
as Ovid ; witness some of the tales of his 
Metamorphoses, particularly the story of 
Ceyx and Haley one, which I never read 
without weeping. The Medea of Ovid 
is a great loss. 1 persuade myself if this 
work, which all the ancients have so high- 
ly commended, was now extant, it would 
bear the palm from all our modern trage- 
dies, whether French or English. No ju- 
dicious critick hath ever yet denied that 
Ovid has more wit than any other poet 
of the Augustan age. That he has too 

CD O 

much, and that his fancy is too luxuriant, 
is the fault generally imputed to him. 
This he would probably have corrected, 
if he had had the liberty of reviewing his 
Metamorphoses : 

Emendaturus, si Iicuisset, erat. 



34 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

But, methinks, I am much better pleased 
that this did not happen, since by vary- 
ing and expressing the same thought in 
a different manner, this poet hath left us 
a standing proof of the copiousness and 
elegance of the Latin tongue. This is of 
great use to our youth in learning Latin, 
and indeed to all who attempt to write in 
that language. What would I give for the 
chippings of the JEntidl For we are told 
that Tucca and Varius cut off from that 
poem as much as they left, before it was 
offered to the publick. All the imperfec- 
tions of Ovid are really pleasing. But who 
would not excuse all his faults on account 
of his many excellencies, particularly his 
descriptions, which have never been equal- 
led ? 

Courage, in which I include a fortitude 
of mind as well as personal bravery, 
should not be wanting in any person who 
is engaged in the publick service, whether 
he be in a civil or military station, or who 
has formed a design of acquiring either. 
Without courage a man of the greatest 
abilities and integrity will scarce be able 
to preserve his character, and in some exi- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 35 

gences, to save his person. His pru- 
dence will frequently be confounded, and 
his honesty will be warped by his fears. 
The late Lord Bolenbroke, so well 
known by his writings, executed his em- 
ployment of Secretary of State with great 
address and sufficiency. When after 
Queen Anne's death he was impeached of 
high treason, Sir Thomas Hare, his un- 
der secretary, secreted all the papers of any 
consequence, before the office was search- 
ed. But my Lord Bolenbroke, after 
thanking Sir Thomas Hare and acknow- 
ledging the greatest obligations to him, as 
to one who had preserved him, was induc- 
ed either by the fair promises or the mena- 
ces of Mr. Stanhope,* to resign all these 
papers into the hands of the secret com- 
mittee, and thus furnished them with 
materials whereon to ground all the arti- 
cles of his impeachment. If Lord Bolen- 
broke had had the firmness and resolution 
of the Earl of Oxford, he would not 
have been forced into banishment, and 
been deprived of his estate and honours. 

* See Park's Preface to Boliogbroke's Letters. 



36 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

The late Duke of Wharton had very 
bright parts, a great vivacity, a quick ap- 
prehension, a ready wit and a natural 
eloquence, and all improved by an excel- 
lent education. I do not believe that any 
young nobleman, on his first entrance into 
the House of Lords, hath appeared with 
such advantage. His speech in defence 
of Dr. Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, 
was heard with universal applause and ad- 
miration, and was indeed not unworthy of 
the oldest and most accomplished senator, 
or the most able and eloquent lawyer in 
either House of Parliament. So that he 
might have promised himself the first em- 
ployments in the kingdom : and he had no 
small share of ambition. But he defeated 
his own designs. He had no prudence or 
economy ; and he wanted personal cour- 
age. The last however would probably 
have been concealed, if he had been a so- 
bf-T man. But he drank immoderately, 
jan I was very abusive, and sometimes very 
mischievous in his wine; so that he drew 
op himself frequent challenges, which he 
would never answer. On other accounts, 
likewise, his character was become very 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 37 

prostitute. So that having lost his hon- 
our, he left his count ry. 

Since the beginning of the present war, 
Admiral Bying was condemned to death by 
one court-martial, and my Lord George 
Sackville was disgraced by another. But 
both were acquitted of the crime of cow- 
ardice. And yet this is the only charge 
brought against them both before and since 
their trials, by the voice of the people. If 
I were compelled to deliver my own opin- 
ion, I should think myself better justified 
in adding my vote to the cry of the multi- 
tude, than concurring in the sentence of 
either of the court-martials. 

Colonel Cecil, who was a^ent for the 
Chevalier St. George, and succeeded 
my Lord Orrery, the father of the pre- 
sent Earl of Corke, in that office, had a 
weak judgment, and was very illiterate, 
and in many other respects was wholly 
unqualified for such a delicate commission. 
I believe he was a man of honour, and yet 
lie betrayed his master. For he suffered 
himself to be cajoled and duped by Sir 
Robert Walpole to such a degree, as to 
be fully persuaded that Sir Robert had 
4 



38 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

formed a design to restore the House of 
Stuart. For this reason he communicat- 
ed to Sir Robert all his dispatches, and 
there was not a scheme which the Cheva- 
lier's court or the Jacobites in England 
had projected during Sir Robert's long 
administration, of which that minister was 
not early informed, and was therefore able 
to defeat it without any noise or expence. 
The Duchess of Buckingham, who was 
closely connected with Cecil, had made 
two or three journeys to Versailles in or- 
der to persuade Cardinal Fleury. But 
she got nothing from the Cardinal but 
compliments and civil excuses, and was 
laught at by both courts for her pompous 
manner of travelling, in which she affect- 
ed the state of a sovereign prince. It 
is no wonder that this woman, who was 
half-mad, was induced by Cecil to enter- 
tain the same favourable opinion with him- 
self of Sir Robert Walpole, and con- 
sequently all the letters and instructions 
which she received from Rome were with- 
out reserve communicated to him. He 
was at last so much in her good graces, 
that she offered to marry him, which Sir 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 39 

Robert very civilly declined. However, 
to testify her good opinion of him, she ap- 
pointed him one of her executors. After 
Sir Robert Walpole's resignation, the 
new ministry ordered Cecil, whose agency 
was well knov\n, to be taken into custody, 
which gave Sir Robert the occasion of 
saying to some of his friends, that the 
government had taken up the man from 
whom he had received all his information 
of the Jacobite measures. 

It is certain, that all our national mis- 
fortunes since the accession of the House 
of Hanover must be chiefly ascribed to 
Walpole's administration. He unhinged 
all the principles and morals of our people, 
and changed the government into a system 
of corruption. He openly ridiculed vir- 
tue and merit, and promoted no man to 
any employment of profit or honour, who 
had scruples of conscience, or refused 
implicitly to obey his commands* He 
was a ready speaker, understood the busi- 
ness of parliament, and knew how to 
manage a House of Commons, which 
however was not a very difficult task, if 
it be considered that a majority of the 



40 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

members were of his own nomination. 
He seemed to have great resolution ; and 
yet he was once so much intimidated by 
the clamours of the people without doors, 
that he thought it expedient to give up 
one of his most favourite schemes. He 
had besides some difficulties to encounter 
through his whole administration, which 
were not known to the publick. A friend 
of mine who dined with him one day tete- 
a-tete took occasion to compliment him on 
the great honour and power Which he en- 
joyed as prime minister. " Doctor," says 
he, " I have great power, it is true : but 
I have two cursed drawbacks, Hanover, 
and the * # * avarice." This minister, 
who thought he bad established himself 
beyond a possibility of being shaken, fell 
at last by his too great security : if he 
may be said to fall, who went out of em- 
ployment with an Earldom and a pension 
of 4000/. or 5000/. a year. 

Some very worthy gentlemen and true 
lovers of their country were inclined to 
pray for the continuance of Sir Robert's 
ministry, as the old woman prayed for the 
life of Dionysius the tyrant. They judg- 






OF MS OWN TIME 41 

ed that his successors would be worse 
ministers, and worse men; that they would 
pursue his measures without his abilities 
and the event has verified their prediction. 
No incident in this reign astonished 
us so much as the conduct of my Lord 
Bath, who chose to receive his honours 
as the wages of iniquity, which he might 
have had as the reward of virtue. By his 
opposition to a mal-administration for near 
twenty years, he had contracted an univer- 
sal esteem, and was considered as the chief 
bulwark and protector of the British liber- 
ties. By the fall of Walpole, he enjoyed 
for some days a kind of sovr reign power. 
During this interval, it was expected that 
he would have fotmed a patriot ministry, 
and have put the publick affairs in such a 
train as would necessarily, in a very short 
time, have repaired all the breaches in our 
constitution. But how were we deceived ! 
He deserted the cause of his country : he 
betrayed his friends and adherents: he 
ruined his character j and from a most 
glorious eminence sunk down to a degree 
of contempt. The first time Sir Robert 
(who was now Earl of Orford) met him 



42 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

in the House of Lords, he threw out this 
reproach : " My Lord Bath, you and I 
are now two as insignificant men as any in 
England.'''' In which he spoke the truth 
of my Lord Bath, but not of himself. 
For my Lord Orford was consulted by 
the ministers to the last day of his life. 

Mr. W. Levison, my Lord Gower's 
brother, told me that he happened to be 
in the House of Lords, and standing next 
Sir Robert Walpole, when there was a 
warm debate concerning some ministerial 
measures. In the midst of the debate 
says Sir Robert to him ; "You see with 
what zeal and vehemence these gentlemen 
oppose, and yet I know the price of every 
man in this House except three, and your 
brother is one of them." Sir Robert was 
frequently very unguarded in his expres- 
sions : for nothing certainly could have 
been thrown out more injurious to the 
honour of the House of Lords. Besides, 
this was an open confession of his man- 
ner of governing, and to what a great 
height he had carried corruption. 

Sir Robert lived long enough to know 
that my Lord Gower had his price as well 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 43 

as the rest, and was unworthy of forming 
his triumvirate. 

My Lord Gower's defection was a 
great blow to the Tory party, and a sin- 
gular disappointment to all his friends. 
For no one had entertained the least jeal- 
ousy or suspicion of this part of his con- 
duct. He had such an honest and open 
countenance as would have deceived the 
most skilful physiognomist. He was not 
a lover of money, nor did beseem ambi- 
tious of any thing, but true glory ; and 
that he enjoyed. For no man within my 
memory was more esteemed and reverenc- 
ed. Fie declared his principles very free- 
ly, and all his actions were correspondent. 
The Tories considered him as their chief: 
they placed the greatest confidence in 
him, and did nothing without his advice 
and approbation. They even persuaded 
themselves that he had an excellent judg- 
ment and understanding, though his parts 
were very moderate, and his learning 
superficial. But he was affable and cour- 
teous ; and he had a certain plausibility, 
which, with a candour of manners, suppli- 
ed the place of superiour talents. He had 



44 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

a large estate, and was celebrated by all 
his neighbours for his hospitality. And 
he was as much respected for his private 
as he was for his pub-lick virtues. He 
was a good husband, a good father, and a 
good master. When he accepted the 
privy seal, he used all his art to preserve 
the good opinion of his old friends. He 
assured them, that he went into employ- 
ment with no other view than to serve his 
country, and that many articles tending to 
a thorough reformation were already stipu- 
lated. I had a letter from him (for I liv- 
ed in some degree of intimacy with him 
for many years) to the purposes I have 
mentioned. Soon after I saw him, when 
he read the articles to me. If I rightly 
remember, they were thirteen in number: 
not one of which was performed, or ever 
intended to be performed. When this 
was at length discovered, he laid aside his 
disguise, adhering to the new system, and 
openly renouncing his old principles. He 
was then created an Earl: and this feather 
was the only reward of his apostacy. 
For all the money which he received from 
his place did not refund him half the sum 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 45 

(as he himself confessed) which he had ex- 
pended to support the measures of the 
administration. Such was the conduct of 
this unhappy man, who for a shadow bar- 
tered a most respectable character, and 
sacrificed his honour and his country. 
After this he never enjoyed any peace of 
mind, and it is no wonder if he died of 
what we call a broken heart. 

I was invited to dine at the late Earl 
of Marchmont's, where I found the pre- 
sent Earl and his brother, my Lord 
Stair, Sir Luke Schaub, and four or 
five ladies. The conversation during din- 
ner (occasioned by something which had 
just then happened at court) turned upon 

the Q, 's love of money. Every one, 

except Sir Luke Schaub, had a story on 
this subject: and some of them were very 
unbecoming sacred majesty. Sir Luke, 
who was a pensioned courtier, thought 

himself obliged to defend the Q, 's 

honour, and said to me, who sat next him : 
" Doctor, there is not more than one of 
these scandalous tales in an hundred that 
is true." "Then, Sir Luke," I replied, 
" you acknowledge that one in an hundred 



46 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

is true." He immediately perceived his 
errour : and one of the company observed, 
" that if only one in a hundred of such 
stories as had been related were true, 
there would not be any great injustice in 
imputing all the rest." It might perhaps 
be too severe a censure to charge a wo- 
man with unchastity, who had only trans- 
gressed with one man. But a base and 
sordid spirit is discovered by one act of 
avarice. 

The custom of giving money to ser- 
vants is now become such a grievance, that 
it seems to demand the interposition of the 
legislature to abolish it. How much are 
foreigners astonished, when they observe 
that a man cannot dine at any house in 
England not even with his father or his 
brother, or with any other of his nearest 
relations, or most intimate friends and 
companions, unless he pay for his dinner! 
But how can they behold without indig- 
nation or contempt a man of quality stand- 
ing by his guests, while they are distribut- 
ing money to a double row of his ser- 
vants? If, when I am invited to dine with 
any of my acquaintance, I were to send 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 47 

the master of the house a sirloin of beef 
for a present, it would be considered as a 
gross affront ; and yet as soon as I shall 
have dined, or before I leave the house, I 
must be obliged to pa)' for the sirloin, which 
was brought to his table, or placed on the 
sideboard. For I contend that all the mon- 
ey which is bestowed on the servants is 
given to the master. For if the servants 
wages were increased in some proportion 
to their vails (which is the practice of a few 
great families, the D. of Norfolk's, Mr. 
Spencer's, Sir Francis Dash wood's, &c), 
this scandalous custom might he totally ex- 
tinguished. 1 remember a Lord Poor, a 
Roman Catholick Peer of Ireland y who liv- 
ed upon a small pension which Q,. Anne 
had granted him : he was a man of honour, 
and well esteemed ; and had formerly been 
an officer of some distinction in the service 
of France, The Duke of Ormonde had 
often invited him to dinner, and he as often 
excuse 1 himself. At last the Duke kindly 
expostulated wiih him, and would know 
the reason why he so constantly refused to 
be one of his guest. My Lord Poor I hen 
honestly confessed that he could not afford 



48 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

it : " but," says he, " if your Grace will put 
a guinea into my hands as often as you are 
pleased to invite me to dine, I will not de- 
cline the honour of waiting on you." This 
was done ; and my Lord was afterwards a 
frequent guest in St. James's Square. For 
my part, whenever I am invited to the table 
of any of my noble friends, I have the van- 
ity to imagine that my company is desired 
for the sake of mv conversation ; and there 
is certainly no reason why I should give 
the servants money because I give the mas- 
ter pleasure. Besides, I have observed the 
servants of every great house consider 
these vails to be as much their due as the 
fees which are claimed in the Customhouse, 
or in any other publick office. And there- 
fore they make no distinction between a 
gentleman of 200/. a year, and one of 2000/.; 
although they look on the former as infe- 
rior in every respect to themselves. Max- 
ima quceque domus strvU.est plena superbis, 
is an axiom which will hold true to the end 
of the world. Upon the whole, if this 
custom, which is certainly a disgrace to our 
country, is to continue in force, I think it 
may at least be practised in a better manner. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 49 

Suppose there were written in large gold 
letters over the door of every man of rank : 
The fees for dining here are three 
half crowns (or ten shillings] to be paid 
to the porter un entering the house i 
peers or peeresses to pay what more 
they think proper. By this regula- 
tion two inconveniences would be avoid- 
ed : first, the difficulty of distinguishing, 
amongst a great number, the quality of 
the servants. I, who am near-sighted, have 
sometimes given the footman what I de- 
signed for the butler, and the butler has 
had only the footman's fee : for which the 
butler treated me with no small contempt, 
until an opportunity offered of correcting 
myerrour. But,secondly, this method would 
prevent the shame which every master of a 
family cannot help feeling whilst he sees 
his guests giving about their shillings and 
hail-crowns to his servants. He may then 
conduct them boldly to his door, and take 
his leave with a good grace. My Lord 
Taaff e of Ireland, a general officer in the 
Austrian service, came into England & few 
years ago on account of his private affairs. 
When his friends, who had dined with him, 
5 



50 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

were going away, he always attended them 
to the door ; and if they offered any mon- 
ey to the servant who opened it (for he 
never suffered but one servant to appear), 
he always prevented them, saying, in his 
manner of speaking English, " if you do 

GIVE, GIVE IT TO ME, FOR IT WAS I THAT DID 
BUY THE DINNER." 

A perfect friendship, as it is describ- 
ed by the ancients, can only be contracted 
between men of the greatest virtue, gene- 
rosity, truth, and honour. Such a friendship 
requires that all things should be in com- 
mon i and that one friend should not only 
venture, but be ready to lay down his life 
for the other. According to this definition 
of friendship, Cicero observes that all the 
histories, from the earliest ages down to his 
time, had not recorded more than two or 
three pair of friends ; and I doubt whether 
at this day we could add two or three pair 
more to the number. In our country, which 
is governed by money, and where every 
man is in pursuit of his own interest, it would 
be in vain to look fora real friendship. Our 
companions, and our common acquaintance, 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 51 

those especially with whom we live in any 
degree of familiarity, we call our friends ,♦ 
and we are always ready to give them such 
marks of our friendship as will not put us 
to any great inconveniency, or subject us 
to any great expense. If an Englishman, 
like the Greek philosopher, were to be- 
queath his wife and children to be main- 
tained by one of his rich friends, he would 
be deemed non compos. If a man would 
long preserve his friendships, I mean those 
imperfect friendships which are generally 
contracted in this country, he should be 
particularly careful to have no money- 
concerns with his friends, at least to owe 
them no great obligations on that account. 
Most of the breaches of friendship which I 
have remarked, as likewise the family feuds 
which are now subsisting in England, are 
to be ascribed to this cause. The latter 
indeed are not always to be avoided, but 
the first always may. I was talking on this 
subject with a learned foreigner, who seem- 
to doubt the truth of my general observa- 
tion, and thought my countrymen did not 
deserve the character which I had imputed 
to them. He could not conceive why there 



52 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

was not the greatest warmth and activity 
in our friendships, when we were so ready 
to relieve the helpless and indigent, and 
had given such proofs of our humanity and 
charity as were not equalled by any nation 
in Europe, And then he reckoned all the 
hospitals which were supported by annual 
and voluntary contributions. I acknowl- 
edge this to be a kind of a contradiction in 
our manners, but I did not tell him that I 
imputed no small proportion of these ex- 
traordinary charities to the vanity of the 
donors. 

Suetonius, or whoever was the author 
of the Life of Horace, tells us that Meccenas, 
when he was dying, recommended Horace 
to the care of Augustus Ccesar in these words, 
Horaiii Flacci, ul mei, mem or esto : which 
in my judgment is the noblest and most 
beautiful expressions of friendship that is 
recorded by any ancient or modern histo- 
rian or biographer. I am so much affect- 
ed by it, that in this short sentence 1 ima- 
gine lean discern the excellent qualities of 
the patron, and the great merit of the poet, 
as well as the force of their friendship. 



OP HIS OWN TIMES. 53 

Doctor Swift was always persuaded 
that the Archbishop of York had made im- 
pressions on Queen Anne to his disadvan- 
tage, and by that means had obstructed his 
preferment in England; and he has hinted 
this in his Apology for the Tale of the Tub, 
and in other parts of his works; and yet 
my Lord Bolinbroke, who must have been 
well informed of this particular, told me 
that he had been assured by the Queen 
herself, that she never had received any un- 
favourable character of Dr. Swift, nor had 
the Archbishop, or any other person, en- 
deavoured to lessen him in her esteem. 
My Lord Bolinbroke added, that this tale 
was invented by the Earl of Oxford to de- 
ceive Swift, and make him contented with 
his Deanery in Ireland: which, although 
his native country, he always looked on as 
a place of banishment. Jf Lord Bolin- 
broke had hated the Earl of Oxford less, 
I should have been readily inclined to be- 
lieve him. 

King Chafles II. after taking two or 
three turns one morning in St. James's 
Park (as was his usual custom), attended 



54 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

only by the Duke of Leeds and my Lord 
Cromarty, walked up Constitution Hill, 
and from thence into Hyde Park. But 
just as he was crossing the road, the Duke 
of York's coach was nearly arrived there. 
The Duke had been hunting that morning 
on Hounslorv Heath, and was returning in 
his coach, escorted by a party of the 
guards, who, as soon as they saw the King, 
suddenly halted, and consequently stopt 
the coach. The Duke being acquainted 
with the occasion of the halt, immediately 
got out of his coach, and, after saluting 
the King, said he was greatly surprised to 
find bis Majesty in that place with such a 
small attendance, and that he thought his 
Majesty exposed himself to some danger, 
"No kind of danger, James; fori am 
sure no man in England will take away 
my life to make you King." — This was 
the Kings answer. The old Lord Cro- 
marty often mentioned this anecdote to 
his friends. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 55 

In the civil war, my grandfather, Sir 
William Smyth, was governour of * Hil- 
lesdon House, near Buckingham, where 
the King had a small garrison. This place 
was besieged and taken by Cromwell. 
But the officers capitulated to march out 
with their arms, baggage, &c. As soon 
as they were without the gate, one of 
Cromwell's soldiers snatched off Sir Wil- 
liam Smyth's hat. He immediately com- 
plained to Cromwell of the fellow's inso- 
lence, and breach of the capitulation. 
" Sir," says Cromwell, "If you can point 
out the man, or I can discover him, I 
promise you be shall not go unpunished. 
In the mean time (taking off a new bea- 
ver, which he had on his head) be pleased 
to accept of this hat instead of your own." 

I mention this incident for no other 
reason but as it may serve in some mea- 
sure to illustrate Cromwell's character. 

Nothing is more mistaken than the act 
of revenge when it concludes in murder. 
To murder your enemy is to make your- 

* The siege of Hillesdon House is nowhere men- 
tioned by my Lord Clarendon. The noble histo* 
rian and Sir W. Smyth were not good friends, 



56 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

self miserable, and to make him happy. 
By his death, perhaps, you may hurt some 
of his friends or relations ; but this was not 
your intention. 

To revenge the community is another 
case, and the assassination of a tyrant is 
publick justice. And yet if I had been 
Brutus, I could not have prevailed on 
myself to have been one of Caesar's mur- 
derers* 

Cardinal Richelieu, who said that un- 
fortunate and imprudent are two words 
which signify the same thing, seems to 
have founded this maxim on the singular 
happiness of his own administration. He 
was certainly a very great politician ; but 
he had all the power as well as the whole 
revenue of France at his disposal. He 
had a regiment of guards for his own per- 
son ; and the favours which he was con- 
stantly conferring on his officers and do- 
mes! icks attached them to him, and secured 
their fidelity. It must further be consider- 
ed, that he made no scruple of removing 
any man out of the way who would not 
implicitly submit to his will, or who seem- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 57 

ed in any respect to disapprove his mea- 
sures. Voultz vous efre a moi? was the 
question he asked Maresehal Bassom- 
pierke, which because the Maresehal did 
not readily and directly answer, he was 
sent the next morning to the Basti!e, where 
he was a prisoner until the Cardinal's 
death, about eighteen years. However, 
with all this power and caution, the Cardi- 
nal was two or three times in great danger 
of his life, and owed his escape to his good 
fortune and presence of mind, and not to 
his foresight, or to any intelligence he had 
received of his enemy's designs. Let us 
consult history, or make our own observa- 
tions for the space of a few years, and we 
shall be convinced that there is a fatality 
which attends the lives of some men (per- 
haps of us all,) insomuch, that with the 
greatest prudence and circumspection, and 
with the noblest endowments of the mind, 
they are not able to avert their misfor- 
tunes; and if they happen to be engaged 
in the service of the commonwealth, the 
performance of their duty shall subject 
them to an accusation, and their virtues 
and love of their country be construed 



58 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

info high crimes and misdemeanors. On 
the other hand, we may behold the dullest 
fellows, men without any talents or any 
one good quality, succeed in all their un- 
dertakings, and arrive so suddenly to 
wealth and honours, that they may be 
justly styled, as they generally are, the 
favourites of Fortune. If they enjoy any 
. high office or puhlick employment, even 
their negligence, their blunders, their cor- 
ruption, shall turn to their advantage. I 
never remember any administration in this 
country that would not furnish us with 
many examples both of one and the other. 

Some ladies of my acquaintance, who 
have a fine understanding and a turn to 
poetry, of which they are good judges, 
have often complained that they could not 
discover any great beauties in the Odes of 
Horace, which are so much admired ; 
although they have read the most cele- 
brated translations (for they are unac- 
quainted with the original) in English, 
French, and Italian. But the truth is, 
the Odes of Horace never were nor ever 
can be translated, so as to display the 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 59 

beauties of the original, which wholly 
consist in the language and expression. 
In the thought or sentiment there is nothing 
extraordinary or more excellent than what 
may be found in the poems of his cotem- 
poraries ; but the language is inimitable, 
and I doubt whether the most learned 
critick of the Augustan age, allowing him 
the best taste as well as judgment, could 
have mended a single expression in any 
of the Odes, or even have changed one 
word for a better. This is what Petro- 
Nius calls the curiosa Jelicitas of Horace; 
which two words are as happily joined 
together as Simplex munditiis: and these 
four words are, perhaps, sufficient to 
characterise the poet, and express the 
beauty of his style in his own manner. I 
could never read the first stanza in the 
Carmen Seculare without falling into a fit 
of devotion : and yet when I read it in the 
best translation, it does not affect me. 
Thus likewise those beautiful odes Donee 
grains eram, &c. and Quem lu, Melpomene, 
&c. (of which St :aliger said he would 
rather be the author than King of Arra- 
gori) rendered into any modern language, 



60 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

do not seein to deserve an hundreth part 
of the praise bestowed on the originals. 

The singular esteem which some 
learned critics have always expressed for 
the works of Horace became at last so 
fashionable, that scarce a man who affect- 
ed the character of a polite scholar ever 
travelled ten miles from home without an 
Horace in his pocket. The late E. of S. 
was such an admirer of Horace, that his 
whole conversation consisted of quotations 
out of that poet : in which he often discov- 
ered his want of skill in the Latin tongue, 
and always his want of taste. But the 
man whom I looked on (if I may be allow- 
ed the expression) as HoRACE-mad, was 
one Dr. Douglas a physician of some 
note in London: I made an acquaintance 
with this gentleman on purpose that I 
might have a sight of his curious library 
(if it might be called a library) which was 
a large room full of all the editions of 
Horace which had ever been published, as 
well as the several translations of that au- 
thor into the modem languages. If there 
were any other books in this room, as 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 61 

there were a small number, they were 
only there for the sake of Horace, and 
were on no other account valuable to the 
possessor, but because they contained some 
parts of Horace which had been publish- 
ed with select pieces, or exeerpta, out of 
other Latin authors for the use of schools ; 
or because the translations of some of the 
odes and satires were printed in miscel- 
lanies, and were not to be found any 
where else. However, I must acknow- 
edge that the Doctor understood his au- 
thor, whom he had studied with great care 
and application. Amongst other of his 
criticisms he favoured me with the perusal 
of a dissertation on the first ode, and a de- 
fence of* Dr. Hake's famous emendation 
of Te doctarum, &c. instead of Me. 

* This emendation hath been given by the Dutch 
criticks to Brockhusius. But I could never find it in 
any part of his works, and therefore the merit of it 
should justly be left to Dr. Hare. 

See a note at the bottom of page 150 of a pam- 
phlet, published 1723, entitled Scriptures vindicated 
from the misinterpretation of the Bishop of Bangor, 
&c. 

6 



62 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

A story-teller is the most agreeable 
or the most disagreeable character we can 
meet with. A story, which is designed to 
entertain a polite company, should always 
be short, and, with a mixture of wit and 
humour, be told in good language. King 
Charles the Second, who had most excel- 
lent parts, had likewise a most agreeable 
manner of telling his stories; and Shef- 
field, Duke of Buckingham, informs us, 
that the same story which he had heard 
from the King five or six times he always 
heard with pleasure, as it was always em- 
bellished with some new circumstances. 
This was an happy talent, owing to a quick 
fancy and a lively imagination; for a fre- 
quent repetition of the same tale to the 
same persons, which at first was very enter- 
taining, becomes at length insipid and ridi- 
culous, and is apt to lessen the character of 
the man who tells it, even in the esteem of 
his friends, who ascribe that to the want of 
judgment or defect of understanding which 
should only be imputed to the loss of me- 
mory. I have been greatly abashed when 
I have caught my serf endeavouring to en- 
tertain my friend with the same story w T hich 



OF HIS CWN TIMES, 63 

I had related to him a few days before: 
and I have sometimes resolved to cure my- 
self of this infirmity of my old age, by re- 
straining my conversation, and confining 
it to the news and business of the day, the 
manners of the times, &c. ; and when I hap- 
pen to be in the company of scholars, 
making observations on ancient and mod- 
ern authors. But hitherto I have not pre- 
vailed on myself to pursue this prudent re- 
solution; but am content to bear this re- 
proach of my age in common with my 
equals. I remember only one old man 
who was quite free from any imputation 
of this kind : lie was a fellow of the college 
in which I was educated, and was an in- 
structive and the most delightful compan- 
ion I have ever known ; he had an inex- 
haustible fund of merry tales, or rather he 
had such a fund of wit, and such a quick 
and luxuriant imagination, that he was al- 
ways capable of producing something new 
and very entertaining; and as we rarely 
heard him tell the same stories twice, we 
concluded they were the fruits of a sudden 
invention. Horace, I imagine, was a man 
of this character ; he was certainly a pleas- 



64 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

ant and facetious companions, as we may 
judge by the jollity of some of his odes, 
and by the love which August us and Mcece- 
nas had conceived for him. Among many 
other short stories he hath left us two, 
which are not more diverting than they are 
instructive, the Ibam forte via sacra, and 
the account of Philippus and the Crier, 
Epist. 7. B. 1 . Lucian was a merry Greek ; 
he is every where full of wit ; his drollery 
is exquisite, and his satire is just: one of 
his short tales has been wrought by Apu- 
leius into a large volume. But of all the 
ancient authors of this character, I have a 
partiality for Petronius. There is a cer- 
tain grace and pleasantry peculiar to him- 
self in whatever he relates : his history of 
the Ephesian matron is allowed by all the 
criticks to be a master-piece : it is concise 
and elegant ; it is simple and sublime : but 
what distinguishes the excellent judgment 
of the author, there is not a circumstance 
which can be added to it or taken from it 
without lessening its value ; and Monsieur 
St. Evremond, though I acknowledge him 
to be an admirable writer, and one of the 
greatest geniuses which this or the last age 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 65 

hath produced, hath yet, in my opinion, 
done no honour to Petronius by paraphras- 
ing the Ephesian Matron, and lengthen- 
ing the narrative. To learn a good manner 
of telling a story or relating any fact, jocose 
or serious, we should be very conversant 
with Terence ; his comedies will furnish 
many examples for our purpose: the first 
scene in the Andria is a beautiful narra- 
tive, and in my judgment hath not been 
equalled by any comick writer, ancient or 
modern. Cicero hath remarked some 
of its excellencies: and there are others 
which cannot escape the observation of any 
man of taste. The incident, which discov- 
ers the love of Pamphilus for Gly cerium, 
is so descriptive, that whilst we are reading 
that part, we imagine ourselves present at 
the funeral pile : the whole scene is clear 
and methodical, and though it consists of 
two or three pages only, there are circum- 
stances enough to supply some modern 
memoir-writers with matter for a whole 
volume. 

A little before the revival of letters, 
Boccace and some other Italian wits began 
to publish short stories ; and from them our 
6* 



66 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Chaucer borrowed most of his Canterbu- 
ry Tales. But whatever he took in hand 
of foreign growth he much improved, and 
adapted to the taste and manners of his own 
countrymen. Towards the end of the last 
century and the beginning of this,FoNTAiNE 
and our Prior published their tales, and it 
is generally agreed that in this kind of writ- 
ing they have excelled all who went before 
them. 

But I have insensibly digressed from my 
first purpose, which was only to mention 
some particular characters, which, as I had 
observed, were capable of enlivening or 
confounding a conversation by their man- 
ner of telling a story ; for a man may be a 
facetious and witty author, who is a dull 
and heavy companion. Such, 1 am well 
assured, was the celebrated Fontaine, 
whom I have mentioned above : and who 
that hath read Mr. Ajdi son's Tatlers and 
Spectators, which abound with wit and hu- 
mour, and are infinitely superioui to ail his 
other compositions, would not expect to 
have found him a most agreeable compan- 
ion ? An old acquaintance of mine hath 
treasured up a very curious and interest- 



OP HIS OWN TIMES. 67 

ing collection of anecdotes, which have al- 
ways given me great pleasure when I have 
been able to come at them ; for though he 
is ever ready to tell his story, and like- 
wise knows how to apply it, yet his intro- 
duction is so long and tedious, and his di- 
gressions so frequent, and so much out of 
the way, that he often loses his point of 
view, and is unable to recover the track, 
unless he asks the person who sits next him 
upon what occasion he began his tale ; and 
yet this gentleman does not want either 
learning or prudence, and has kept as good 
company as any man in England. What 
is very remarkable, he is apt to condemn 
others for the fault of which he is so noto- 
riously guilty ; so little sensible are the 
wisest men of their own failings! 

There are some persons who generally 
take the lead in conversation, and are well 
furnished for the purpose , but they relate 
nothing but what is wonderful, and they 
are always the heroes of their own roman- 
ces : and like other heroes, they do not 
easily bear a contradiction ; but are apt to 
quarrel if you doubt their honour, and 
seem incredulous. I knew a merry droll. 



68 DR. RING'S ANECDOTES 

who was always an overmatch for men of 
this character: whenever they advanced 
something very romantick, he always rose 
some degrees above them, and asserted a 
fact which was more astonishing and im- 
probable than any thing which they had 
related. This is, perhaps, the best and 
safest method of answering a gasconade, 
and reproving the author. I will con- 
clude with this observation : a story well 
told and well applied, is not only the most 
delightful part of a private conversation, 
but is generally of good use in a publick 
assembly where any important matter is 
to be debated ; for it embellishes the most 
eloquent oration ; it awakes and keeps up 
the attention of the audience; it puts the 
adverse party inlo good humour, and has 
sometimes a greater weight and influence 
than the most powerful and persuasive 
arguments. 

I?eus x\obis hjeo otia fecit hath been 
thought by some commentators a criminal 
compliment, and a piece of flattery un- 
worthy of Virgil. But they have not 
sufficiently considered how this expression 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. &9 

is explained and qualified by the verse 
which immediately follows, namque erit 
ille mihl semper Deus: for here the poet 
seems to restrain the worship of Augustus 
to himself, and does not require that he 
should be esteemed a god by any other 
person. Besides, this was not such an 
high flight in a Roman poet as it would 
be in an English or French writer: many 
of the Roman deities had been men, and 
all of them were subject to human infirmi- 
ties and the passions of men, such as love, 
anger,, hatred, and revenge : so that it 
would not have been a crime to have pro- 
nounced some of the most excellent citi- 
zens of Rome superiour to many of their 
gods; and Lucaw has exalted Cato above 
them all, if I rightly comprehend the 
meaning of this verse, 

Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 

I am told that the * inscription placed over 
the gate of the Duke of Argyle's new 
house in Scotland is, 

* I have been since informed that this is the in- 
scription of the foundation stone. 



70 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Dux Cumbria nobis hcec otia fecit. 

This is a very improper motto or inscrip- 
tion for a house, and is on another account 
very absurd ; for when we borrow a verse 
from a Greek or Roman poet, and adapt 
it to a modern purpose, by changing 
a word or two, we should be careful to 
fit the words we insert to the measure of 
the verse. Dux Cumbrlx will not stand 
in an lie xa meter. Assuilur pannus. It is 
prose and poetry ill pieced. 

Flattery can never engage the atten- 
tion of a judicious reader, unless it be 
short and very ingenious. The compli- 
ments which Virgil and Horace have be- 
stowed on their patrons are read with 
pleasure, and are the best examples of this 
kind of writing. The force and majesty 
of that beautiful climax, with which Vir- 
gil concludes his Georgics, cannot be suf- 
ficiently admired. 

C&esar dum magnus ad altum 
Fulminat Euphratem hello : Fictorqite volcntes 
Per populos dot jura ; viamque affeclat Olympo. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 7\ 

How comprehensive is this short compli- 
ment ; and with what grace and dignity 
the poet rises, till he exalts his patron into 
a divinity ! I may judge amiss, but I 
would rather have been the author of these 
three verses than of Pliny's whole pane- 
gy rick. 

Horace begins his Epistle to Augus- 
tus with great art and elegance of ex- 
pression. The publick character which 
he hath drawn of that prince in four or 
five short sentences, a modern dedicator 
would easily spin out into forty or fifty 
pages.* 

I have often wondered how the custom 
of writing long dedications first prevailed ; 
it must certainly be attributed to the ig- 
norance rather than to the vanity of mo- 
dern patrons. To ascribe to a great man 

* Cum tot sustineas, et tanta ncgotia solus. 
Res Italas bello tuicris, moribus omes, 
Legibus cmendes : in publica commoda peccem, 
Si longo serrnone morer tua tempora, Caesar. 

N. B. The praises given to the Emperor in the 
end of this EjjisUe are as refined as those which I 
have cited. 



72 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

those virtues which he wants, is in my 
opinion an injurious treatment : it is irony ; 
it is satire ; and hath sometimes been con- 
strued as such, and pronounced to be a 
libel by our courts of judicature. There 
is, moreover, this ill consequence resulting 
from it, that the patron's good qualities, 
if he happens to have any good qualities, 
are by this means obscured and discredit- 
ed ; for an heap of fulsome and false praise 
will always render that suspected which is 
true. When I take up a book which is 
dedicated to the King or a prince of the 
blood, or a prime minister, or indeed any 
man of great quality or great wealth, I 
always pass over the dedication, where I 
am sure of meeting with nothing but the 
grossest flattery. If I could say of our 
^Kjng w-iat may be said with great truth 
of the King of Prussia, 

Quern tu, Dca, tempore in omnt 
Omnibus ornatum voluisti excellerc rebus, 

would not this short eulogy be preferable 
to all the publick addresses, dedications, 

i 
# King George the Second. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 73 

poetical rhapsodies, and birth-day odes, 
which have been composed in honour of 
his Majesty since his accession to the 
throne ? 

Although Virgil was a court poet, and 
a favourite of Augustus, and was not only 
rewarded, but enriched by that Emperor's 
bounty, yet his principles were republi- 
can. He retained a secret veneration for 
the patriot senators, and abhorred that ve- 
nality and corruption by which the first 
Caesar overturned the liberties of his 
country, and fixed his usurpation. There 
are two passages, one in the 6th, and the 
other in the 8th book of the JEndd, which 
sufficiently prove my assertion. And I 
have sometimes wondered why Tucca and 
Varlus did not expunge them out of a 
compliment to the prince; but it is proba- 
ble that their principles of government, 
(for they were botli men of a distinguished 
character) were the same as the poet's, 
whose work they were commissioned to 
revise. 

Vendidit hie auro patriam y dominumquc potentem 
Imposuit. 

7 



74 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

The commentators are generally of opinion 
that Virgil in this place alludes to Curio, 
who sold Rome to Julius Caesar, and 
was the principal cause of the ruin of the 
Commonwealth. But whether he alludes 
to Curio or not, he certainly avows his 
own principles by placing in the most hor- 
rible region of his poetical hell the man 
who sells his country, and erecls it into 
a tyranny. The other line in the 81 h 
book, 

Secretosque pios : his dantem jura Catonem, 

is a noble encomium on Cato, than which 
nothing can be carried higher ; for the 
poet does not only assign to Cato the first 
seat in the happy abodes, but he places him 
at the head of all the other blessed spirits 
as their guide and director. The criticks 
and commentators seem to agree that Vir- 
gil does not mean Cato Uticensis, but 
Cato the Censor ; and they all give the 
same reasons for their conjecture. First, 
they allege, that to have bestowed such 
particular praise on Cato Uticensis, who 
was the most obstinate and inveterate ene- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. C5 

my of Julius CAEsar, would have been a 
signal affront to Augustus ; and, secondly, 
as Cato was guilty of suicide, lie could 
not be admitted into the Elysian fields: 
but these reasons, I think, are not convinc- 
ing ; for was not the affront to Augustus 
as great by placing Curio, the most use- 
ful of Caesar's friends, in hell, as honour- 
ing Cato with a seat in Elysium ? and as 
to his suicide, which the Romans esteemed 
the noblest of all his actions, that could 
be no bar to his future happiness: the 
commentators forget that JLkeas met 
Dido in the Elysian fields. But whether 
the poet designed this great dignity and 
pre-eminence in Elysium for Cato the 
Censor, or Cato ITticensis, or whether 
he purposely left it doubtful, it is certain 
that he designed it (choose which of the 
Catos you please) for a republican and 
patriot spirit, for one who had been a con- 
stant and steady friend to virtue and his 
country. 

Monsieur Tournefort, and other ju- 
dicious and candid travellers, who lived 
some time among the Turks, and were 



76 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

diligent to inquire info the religion, cus- 
toms, and manners of those people, speak 
of them very favourably. They acknow- 
ledge that the Turks perform all the du- 
ties of their religion with a scrupulous ex- 
actness, and particularly are so charitable, 
that they are always ready to relieve any 
person who will make his necessities known. 
Monsieur Tournefort says, that he 
never saw a beggar in Turkey. In truth, 
if we compare his account of the Turks 
with the character which he and some 
later travellers give us of the Greeks, we 
have no reason to be surprised that so few 
of the former are proselyted to the faith 
of Christ ; and yet these men are better 
Christians than are perhaps to be found in 
most parts of Christendom. As 1 have 
observed before, they are not only emi- 
nent for their charities, but upon all occa- 
sions they are easy and ready to forgive 
one another. They have no duels in that 
country, nor is any man assassinated in 
Turkey from a false principle of honour 
or revenge. They retain a grateful sense 
of any favours they have received. A 
Turk of some distinction, who had been 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 77 

a slave at Leghorn, and during his captivi- 
ty in that city had been often relieved by 
an English merchant, and by whose means 
he was at last enabled to recover his liber- 
ty, met Mr Randolph (whose travels we 
have) some years after at Negropont, and 
knowing him to be an Englishman, treated 
him with the greatest kindness and gene- 
rosity ; and having procured him a pas- 
sage on board a Turkish ship, he recom- 
mended him to the captain in these words : 
" When you see this man, you see me ; what 
you do to him, you do to me ; and I will 
answer it, he it good or ill" What a simpli- 
city and goodness of heart appears in this 
recommendation ! For the rest, the Turks 
are very temperate both in eating and 
drinking, and the luxury of a table is un- 
known even in the palace of their Em- 
peror. They persecute no one on the 
account of his religion; and the inquisi- 
tions of Spain and Portugal they would 
abhor, as the temples of Baal, or the altars 
of Busiris. I may add, that on some oc- 
casions they offer up prayers to Jesus 
Christ, as to a great prophet. They, in- 
deed, deny his divinity, which is in them 
7 # 



78 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

much more excusable than the blasphemy 
of those monkish orders, who make their 
founders equal to our Saviour, and the 
miracles pretended to be wrought by ihem 
superiour to the miracles of the gospel. 

The Answers which were made by Mr. 
Legge and Mr. Pitt to the addresses of 
the several corporations, who presented 
those gentlemen with gold boxes, are in a 
very different style and manner. Mr. 
Legge always answers with dignity and 
freedom ; he professes, he promises to 
serve his country ; he accepts of a place 
for that purpose, and you cannot help be- 
lieving him to be in earnest. Mr. Pitt 
answers with caution and reserve ; his e)es 
are fixed on the King ; he goes into em- 
ployment on purpose 1o serve him, and 
thinks it his greatest happiness to execute 
his Majesty's gracious intentions. If Mr. 
Pitt flatters the King, he is a bad man ; if 
he does not, he is a bad patriot. 

I keg an the Toast in anger, but I 
finished it in good humour. When I had 
concluded the second book, I laid aside 
the work, and I did not take it up again 
till some years after, at the pressing instan- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 7® 

ces of Dr. Swift. In the last letter 
which I received from him, he writes thus: 
" In malice I hope your law-suit will force 
you to come over [to Dublin] the next term, 
which I think is a long one, and will allow 
you time to finish it j in the mean time I 
ivish I could hear of the progress and finish- 
ing of another affair [the Toast] relating 
to the same law-suit, but tryed in the courts 
above, upon a hill with two heads, where the 
defendants will as infallibly and more effec- 
tually be cast," &c. And speaking of this 
work to a lady, his near relation, who is 
now living, after he had perused the great- 
est part of it in the manuscript, he told 
her if he had read the Toast when he ivas 
only twenty year s of age, he never would have 
wrote a satire. It is no wonder that such 
a singular approbation should raise the 
vanity of a young writer, or that I im- 
agined I wanted no other vindication of 
this performance than Dr. Swift's opin- 
ion. He was chiefly pleased with the 
notes, and expressed his surprise that I had 
attained such a facility in writing the bur- 
lesque Latin. The motives which induc- 
ed me to form the notes in that manner, 



tO DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

was the judgment I made of those on Mr. 
Pope's Dunciad. That poem, it must he 
allowed, is an excellent satire ; but. there 
is little wit or humour in the notes, al- 
though there is a great affectation of both* 
After Dr. Swift's testimonial, I ought, 
perhaps, to esteem the Toast above all 
my other works ; however, I must confess 
there are some parts of it which my riper 
judgment condemns, and which I wish 
were expunged : particularly the descrip- 
tion of Mira's person in the third book is 
fulsome, and unsuitable to the polite man- 
ners of the present age. But if this work 
was more exceptionable than my eneunes 
pretend it is, I may urge for my excuse, 
that although it has been printed more 
than thirty years, yet it has never been 
published: I have, indeed, presented a few 
copies to some friends, on giving me their 
honour that they would not suffer the 
books to go out of their hands without 
my consent. One of these persons, how- 
ever, forfeited his honour in the basest 
manner, by putting his copy into the hands 
of Blacow, and the rest of the Oxford in- 
formers ; but as they had no key to the 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 81 

work, and did not understand or know 
how to apply the characters, they were 
content to call it an execrable book, and 
throw dirt at the author: and this, in their 
judgment, is the most effectual way of 
answering any performance of wit and 
humour. 

Avarice, says the author of Religio 
Medici, seems to me not so much a vice, as 
a deplorable piece of madness ; and if he had 
added incurable, his definition would have 
been perfect; for an avaricious man is 
never to be cured unless by the same 
medicine which perchance may cure a 
mad dog. The arguments of reason, 
philosophy, or religion, will little affect 
him ; he is born and framed to a sordid 
love of money, which first appears when 
he is very young, grows up with him, and 
increases in middle age, and when he is 
old, and all the rest of his passions have 
subsided, wholly engrosses him. The 
greatest endowments of the mind, the 
greatest abilities in a profession, and even 
the quiet possession of an immense treas- 
ure, will never prevail against avarice, 



82 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

My Lord Hardwiok, the late Lord Chan- 
cellor, who is said to be worth 800,000/. 
sets the same value on a half a crown now 
as he did when he was only worth one 
hundred. That great captain, the Duke 
of Marlborough, when he was in the 
last stage of life, and very infirm, would 
walk from the publick rooms in Bath to 
his lodgings in a cold dark night to save 
sixpence in chair hire. If the Duke, who 
left at his death more than a million and a 
half sterling, could have foreseen that all 
his wealth and honours were to be inherit- 
ed by a grandson of my Lord Trevor's, 
who had been one of his enemies, would 
he have been so careful to save sixpence 
for the sake of his heir? Not for the sake 
of his heir ; but he would always have 
saved a sixpence. Sir James Lowther, 
after changing a piece of silver in George's 
Coffee-house, and paying twopence for 
his dish of coffee, was helped into his 
chariot (for he was then very feme and in- 
firm), and went home; some little time 
after he returned to the same coffee-house 
on purpose to acquaint the woman who 
kept it that she had given him a bad half- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 83 

penny, and demanded another in ex- 
change for it. Sir James had about 40,- 
000/. per annum, and was at a loss whom 
to appoint his heir. I knew one Sir 
Thomas Colby, who lived at Kensington, 
and was, I think, a commissioner in the 
victualling office ; he killed himself by 
rising in the middle of the night when he 
was in a very profuse sweat, the effect of 
a medicine which he had taken for that 
purpose, and walking down stairs to look 
for the key of his cellar, which he had 
inadvertently left on a table in his par- 
lour: he was apprehensive that his ser- 
vants might seize the kev and rob him of 
a bottle of port wine. This man died in- 
testate, and left more than 200,000/. in 
the funds, which was shared among five 
or six day-labourers, who were his nearest 
relations. Sir William Smyth of Bed- 
fordshire, who was my kinsman, when he 
was near seventy, was wholly deprived of 
his sight : he was persuaded to be couched 
by Taylor, the oculist, who by agree- 
ment was to have sixty guineas if he re- 
stored his patients to any degree of sight : 
Taylor succeeded in his operation, and 



84 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Sir William was able to read and write 
without the use of spectacles during the 
rest of his life ; but as soon as the opera- 
tion was performed, and Sir William per- 
ceived the good effects of it, instead of 
being overjoyed, as any other person 
would have been, he began to lament the 
loss (as he called it) of his sixty guineas. 
His contrivance therefore now was how to 
cheat the oculist: he pretended that he 
had only a glimmering, and could see 
nothing perfectly; for that reason the 
bandage on his eye was continued a month 
longer than the Usual time : by this means 
he obliged Taylor to compound the bar- 
gain, and accept of twenty guineas; for a 
covetous man thinks no method dishonest 
which he may legally practise to save his 
money. Sir William was an old bache- 
lor, and at the time Taylor couched him 
had a fair estate in land, a large sum of 
money in the stocks, and not less than 
5000Z. or 6000/. in his house. But to con- 
clude this article; all the dramatick wri- 
ters, both ancient and modern, as well as 
the keenest and most elegant satirists, have 
exhausted their whole stock of wit to ex- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. Bb 

pose avarice ; this is the chief subject of 
Horace's satires and epistles ; and yet the 
character of a covetous man hath never 
yet been fully drawn or sufficiently ex- 
plained. The Euclio of Plautus, the 
L'Avare of Moliere, and the Miser of 
Shadwell, have been all exceeded by 
some persons who have existed within my 
own knowledge. If you could bestow on 
a man of this disposition the wealth of 
both the Indies, he would not have 
enough; because by enough (if such a 
word is to be found in the vocabulary of 
Avarice) he always means something more 
than he is possessed of. Crassus, who 
had a yearly revenue sufficient to main- 
tain a great army, perished, together with 
his son, in endeavouring to add to his 
store. In the fable of Midas, the poet 
had exhibited a complete rharacter, if 
Midas, instead of renouncing the gift 
which the god had bestowed on him, had 
chosen to die in the act of creating gold. 

I have lately read a small volume in 
octavo, which hath been universally well 
received ; so that in the space of a year 
8 



86 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

there were published no less than six edi- 
tions of this book ; and yet there is nothing 
to be found in it that is new ; but the author 
hath judiciously collected the thoughts and 
sentiments of our best political writers, 
which he hath displayed with so much art, 
and hath methodized and arranged in such 
an agreeable order, and in so neat a style, 
that he seems to have made every thing 
his own. The scope of this work is to prove, 
that all the misfortunes which happened to 
us at the beginning of the present war are to 
ascribed to our effeminacy and luxury, 
which are the necessary consequences of 
that system of corruption by which we now 
are governed. I should have conceived a 
very high opinion of this writer, and have 
esteemed the man as much as his work, if 
he had not been guilty of such base adula- 
tion ; especially if he had not flattered one 
of the great patrons of that corruption 
which he hath so justly complained of and 
exposed. If I were to write a satke against 
gaming, and in the middle of my work in- 
sert a panegyrick on the clubs at Ar- 
thur's, who would not question the good 
intentions of the author? and who would 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 8f 

not condemn the absurdity of such a mot- 
ley piece ? Humano capiti, &e. 

A prime minister, who has a little mind 
and a weak judgment, makes a hundred 
promises, which it is neither in his abilities 
nor in his intentions to perform : he is de- 
spised by his own instruments and levee 
hunters, and hated by all the rest of the 
nation ; he is incapable of forming or ex- 
ecuting any great or glorious design ; he 
has only one thing in view, which is to 
preserve his power by a corrupt majority 
in the House of Commons : for this rea- 
son he prefers his followers out of mere 
necessity, who never think themselves 
obliged to him for the places and pensions 
which they enjoy. The D. of N. hath 
spent half a million, and made the fortunes 
of five hundred men, and yet is not allow- 
ed to have one real friend. 

E cohxo descend it, tndbi 2eatton, is an 
article of my creed ; and certainly to know 
one's self is the perfection of human know- 
ledge, and the man who hath early attain- 
ed it will pass through life with ease and 
tranquillity. Cicero, in an epistle to his 



88 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

brother, hath well explained this precept, 
prceceplum Mud noli putare ad arrogantiam 
minuendam solum esse dictum, verum etiam, 
ut bona nostra norimus. To know our- 
selves is to be as truly sensible of our good 
as of our bad qualities ; and whilst we en- 
deavour to free ourselves from the last, 
to know how to apply the first in the con- 
duct of life. I have been acquainted with 
men of wit and learning, and whose morals 
were irreproachable, who were little ac- 
acquainted with themselves, who so egregi- 
ously mistook their own talents as to leave 
or resign into the hands of others, affairs 
of importance, which they could have 
finished with honour and profit, in order 
to go into a business of which they were 
totally ignorant. If Mr. Addison had 
entered into holy orders (and he had made 
divinity his chief study), he might have 
placed himself as high as he pleased on the 
bench of bishops ; in that station he would 
have done honour to the hierarchy, and 
would have been a principal ornament of 
the Church of England : but he ambitioned 
to be a minister of state, and because he had 
some talents, which no man in the adrninis* 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 3S 

tration possessed, he thought himself capa- 
ble of filling the first employments in the 
government. This also seemed to be the 
opinion of his friends and patrons, and 
upon this presumption he was appointed 
Secretary of State : but he soon found 
himself incapable of performing the duty 
of his office ; for though lie understood 
the foreign languages, and could write his 
own with purity, elegance, and correct- 
ness, yet he could not speak a word in the 
house of parliament ; and, which is more 
surprising, he could not dictate the com- 
mon letters of business which were neces- 
sary to be sent from his office ; he was, 
therefore, to his great mortification, oblig- 
ed to resign it, and content himself with 
a sinecure, the place of a Teller in 
the Exchequer, during the rest of his 
life. I knew Mr. Areskike, my Lord 
Mark's brother; he was one of the 
judges in Scotland, and was much esteem- 
ed for his abilities and knowledge in the 
laws of his country. His station, in virtue 
of which he was called Lord Grange,* 

* The Duke of Argyle, as soon as he was inform- 
ed that my Lord Grange had taken his measures 
8* 



90 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

was honourable, was for life ; and such a 
salary was annexed to it as would enable 
a man to live in ease and affluence in that 
part of the world. However, he was by 
no means satisfied with this office ; and 
therefore, to render himself more conspicu- 
ous, he determined to get a seat in the 
House of Commons ; though to effect this, 
he was previously obliged to resign his 
judgeship. However, he made no doubt 
of soon acquiring by his oratory some 
great and lucrative employment in En- 
gland: his first speech was much applaud- 
ed, for he understood business, and argu- 
ed justly; but the House would not long 
endure his Scotch accent ; so that after 
speaking three or four times he was ill 
heard and neglected. In the next parlia- 
ment he lost his election ; and I met him 
in London a year or two before he died, 
when he was so reduced in his circum- 
stance that he was scarce able to furnish 
himself with the necessaries of life. Upon 

so well as to be sure of being elected into parlia- 
ment, brought a bill into the House of Lords, which 
easily passed both Houses, to disqualify any judge 
<?f Scotland to sit in the House of Commons. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 91 

recollection I could instance some other 
persons of great abilities, who have either 
suffered a signal disgrace, or have ruined 
their fortunes, for want of inspecting more 
nearly into themselves ; and I do not know 
whether I may not be justified if I insert 
the name of Lord George Sackville in 
my catalogue : but not in consequence of 
the sentence pronounced against him by 
the court martial (for it was a very ex- 
traordinary proceeding to judge a man 
first and try him afterwards,) but from the 
unprejudiced relation of some officers of 
honour and integrity, who had been with 
my Lord in action, and had remarked his 
conduct. But notwithstanding the charac- 
ters I have here mentioned, I cannot easily 
believe it would be very difficult for a man 
to be so familiar with himself as to know 
what he can or can not do, quid ferre r ecu- 
sent — Quid valeant humeri. It is indeed 
the peculiar happiness of this country, that 
ail who have any share in the administra- 
tion of publick affairs are equally fit for 
all employments. His Grace of N. was 
first Chamberlain, then Secretary of State, 
and is now First Commissioner of the 



92 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Treasury and Chancellor of Cambridge; 
and all these high employments he hath 
executed with equal capacity and judg- 
ment, without being indebted to age or 
experience for the least improvement ; and 
if he had been pleased to accept the Arch- 
bishoprick of Canterbury, when it was 
lately vacant, he would have proved him- 
self as great an orator in the pulpit as 
he is in the senate, and as able a divine as 
he is a politician. As often as I hear this 
nobleman named, he puis me in mind of a 
certain Irish baronet, a man of some inter- 
est in his country, who when the Duke 
of Ormonde was appointed Lord Lieuten- 
ant of Ireland in the beginning of Queen 
Anne's reign, desired his Grace to give 
him a bishopriek, or a regiment of horse, 
or to make him Lord Chief Justice of the 
King's Bench. 

A trifling incident hath sometimes 
been the occasion of the greatest quarrels, 
and such as have ended fatally. I remem- 
ber two gentlemen, who were constant 
companions, disputing one evening at the 
Grecian Coffee-house concerning the ac- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 93 

cent of a Greek word. This dispute was 
carried to such a length that the two friends 
thought proper to determine it with their 
swords; for this purpose they slept out 
into Devereux Court, where one of them 
(whose name, if I rightly remember, was 
Fitzgerald) was run through the body, 
and died on the spot. Some gentlemen 
and ladies of two noble families in Scot- 
land, who were near relations, and had 
always lived together in the greatest har- 
mony and friendship, supt with me in St. 
Mary Hall. A very innocent joke, which 
was designed by the present Earl of M. 
who was one of the company, to increase 
our mirth and good humour, was highly 
resented by one of the ladies, and after- 
wards improved by her into such a quar- 
rel, as concluded in an open rupture be- 
tween the two families. 

I. G. my old acquaintance, and one Mr. 
E. of Bristol, both single men, and in good 
health and good circumstances, agreed to 
travel together for three or four years, and 
visit all the countries of Europe; for that 
purpose they provided themselves with pass- 
ports, bills of exchange, letters of credit 



94 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

and recommendation, &c. About six or 
seven days after they set out, they arrived 
at Brussels, where they had for supper a 
woodcock and a partridge; they disputed 
long which of the birds should be cut up 
first, and with so much heat and animosity, 
that if they had not both been gentlemen 
of a well-tempered courage, this silly dispute 
might have terminated as unhappily as the 
affair at the Grecian Coffee-house. To such 
an height however the quarrel arose, that 
they did not only renounce their new de- 
sign of travelling, but all friendship and 
correspondence ; and the next morning they 
parted, and returned to England, one by 
the way of Calais, and the other through 
Holland. About half a year afterwards I 
happened to be in I. G.'s company; I ask- 
ed him whether what I had heard was true, 
that he and E — ton had agreed to make 
the tour of Europe together, but had un- 
fortunately quarrelled the first week about 
cutting up a woodcock and a partridge. 
" Very true, says he, and did you ever know 
such an absurd fellow as E — ton, who insist- 
ed on cutting up a woodcock before a par- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 96 

tridge* ?" If my old acquaintance had not 
made me (his answer, I should not, I believe, 
have told the story. These relations may 
serve to give a foreigner some idea of those 
many odd and singular characters which 
are so justly imputed to the English na- 
tion. 

ILLE CRUCE1VJ TULIT, HIC DIADEMA, IS 

what must frequently happen in every cor- 
rupt administration ; and was lately veri- 
fied by the sentence of the court martial 
which tried Admiral Byng, and the hon- 
ours which at the same time were confer- 
red on the Governour of Minorca, I speak 
this upon a supposition that Byng was just- 
ly put to death; of which a doubt will al- 
ways remain with us, and which our poster- 
ity will scarce believe, since, in the judg- 
ment of those very gentlemen who con- 
demned this unfortunate admiral, he deserv- 
ed nothing worthy of death or of bonds. 
Admiral Forbes, one of the Lords of the 
Admiralty, who refused to concur with the 

* If we were carefully to trace the decent of these 
whimsical heads, we should generally discover a mad- 
oess in the family. 



96 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

rest of his brethren, halh given such rea- 
sons for his dissent, as sufficiently demon- 
strate the absurdity of their sentence, to 
say no worse of it. But whether Mr. Byng 
suffered justly or not, it is apparent to the 
whole nation, that those ministers who took 
no care to supply the garrison of Port Ma- 
hon, after they had received certain advice 
of the intended invasion, were the greater 
criminals. May it not be fairly inferred 
that Bying was sacrificed to appease the 
clamour of the people, and to screen his 
superiours? 

Whoever hath read the History of the 
five Jameses, and attentively considered the 
great misfortunes which have befallen the 
House of Stuart,* both before and since 
the crown of England was settled on the 
princes of that name, must acknowledge 
that an evil fate halh constantly pursued 
them, and seems determined never to leave 

* Si quelque chose justifie ceux, qui croient une 
fatalite, a laquelle rien ne se peut se soustraire, c'est 
cette suite continuelle de malheurs qui persecuta la 
Maison de Stuart pendant pins de trois cent an.neef. 
Voltaire, Louis XIV. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 9f 

their family till every branch of it be ex- 
tinguished. If I were to ascribe their ca- 
lamities to another cause, or endeavour to 
account for them by any natural means, I 
should think they were chiefly owing to a 
certain obstinacy of temper, which appears 
to have been hereditary, and inherent in all 
the Stuarts, except Chahles II. I have 
read a series of letters which passed be- 
tween King Charles I., whilst he was pris- 
oner at Newcastle, and his queen, who was 
then in France. The whole purport of her 
letters was to press him most earnestly to. 
make his escape, which she had so well con- 
trived, by the assistance of Cardinal Ma- 
zarin, that it could not fail of success. She 
informed him of the designs of his enemies, 
and assured him, if he suffered himself to 
be conveyed to London, they would cer- 
tainly put him to death. But all her en- 
treaties were fruitless : she could not per- 
suade him to believe her informations. In 
all his answers he was positive that his ene- 
mies would not dare to attempt his life. 
This king was certainly a most religious 
and virtuous man ; but he had conceived 
too high a notion of his prerogative, and he 
9 



98 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

wanted all the arts of government. The 
same thing may truly be said of King 
James II. whose misfortunes have general- 
ly been ascribed, both by his friends and 
enemies, not so much to his bigotry,* as to 
the ill judgment which he made of men and 
things, and which was not to be convinced 
or controlled by any remonstrances. I was 
talking with the old Lord Granard, whom 
I knew formerly in Ireland, concerning the 
revolution. He told me, that the first night 
he arrived at the camp on Salisbury Plain, 
where King James was then with his army, 
and where my Lord Granard had the com- 
mand of a regiment, that Churchill (the 
Jate Duke of Marlborough) and some oth- 
er colonels invited him to supper, and 
opened to him their design of deserting to 
the Prince of Orange. My Lord Gra- 
nard did not only- refuse to enter into the 
confederacy, but went immediately to the 
Kjng, and told him he was betrayed, ac- 
quainting him with the discourse which 
had passed at supper. At the same time 
he advised the King to seize all the con- 

* But his ill judgment was perhaps the effect of 
his bigotry. See the note. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 9& 

spirators, and give their commands to oth- 
er officers, of whose fidelity he could be 
well assured. If this advice had been fol- 
lowed, King William's attempt had pro- 
bably been defeated ; but the King did not 
seem to give any credit to my Lord Cra- 
nard's story, and neglected to make a pres- 
ent inquiry into an affair of such great im- 
portance. The next morning he was con- 
vinced of his errour, when it was too late 
to apply a remedy. I could mention other 
anecdotes, which I heard from some Ro- 
man Catholick gentlemen in Ireland, relat- 
ing to King James'^ conduct, which would 

# King James II. was a good Englishman, and a 
lover of his country, and was perhaps less ambitions 
and less desirous of absolute power than his succes- 
sor. If he had been indifferent in matters of reli» 
gion, or had professed the same faith with the Empe- 
ror of China, he would have proved one of the best 
princes who have governed the British islands. But 
his great bigotry obscured all his good qualities ; and 
his zeal to introduce popery was so violent, and 
prompted him to such extravagant attempts, as must 
necessarily, if they had succeeded, have ended in the 
total ruin, not only of our religious, but our civil lib- 
erties. This king's intemperate zeal was ridiculed 
even by the court of Rome. And how must he have 
been mortiSed, if, upon his first appearance at Ver- 



100 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

make it evidently appear that he lost that 
kingdom by the same obstinacy and wrong 
judgment by which he was deprived of the 
crown of England. And now I could de- 
rive the same character down to his grand- 
son, who made such a figure in 1745, if, 
for the better information of my country- 
men, 1 were at liberty to relate some re- 
cent transactions, quceque ipse miserrima 
vidi — et quorum pars magna fui. 

A Repartee, or a quick and witty an- 
swer to an insolent taunt, or to any ill na- 
tured or ironical joke or question, is always 
well received (whether in a publick assem- 
bly or a private company) by the persons 
who hear it, and gives a reputation to the 
man who makes it. Cicero, in one of his 
letters to Atticus, informs him of some re- 
proaches, a kind of coarse raillery, which 
passed between himself and Clodius in the 
senate, and seems to exult and value him- 
self much on his own repartees : though I 
do not think that this was one of Cicero's 
excellencies. Atterbury, Bishop of Ro- 

sailles, after his abdication, he had heard Cardinal 

say to the person who stood next him, " see the 

man who lost three kingdoms for an old mass !" 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 101 

chesler, when a certain bill was brought in- 
to the house of Lords, said among other 
things, (i that he prophesied last winter this 
bill would be attempted in the present session, 
and he was sorry to find that he had proved a 
true prophet.'" Mr. Lord Comngsby, who 
spoke after the bishop, and always spoke 
in a passion, desired the House to remark, 
" that one of the Right Riverends had set 
himself forth as a prophet ; but for his part he 
did not know what prophet to liken him to, un- 
less to that furious prophet Balaam, who was 
reproved by his own ass" The bishop in a 
reply, with great wit and calmness, expos- 
ed this rude attack, concluding thus : " since 
the noble Lord hath discovered in our man- 
ners such a similitude, I am well content to 
be compared to the prophet Balaam : but, my 
Lords, J am at a loss how to make out the 
other part of the parallel : I am sure that I 
have been reproved by nobody but his Lord- 
ship." 

When the late Earl of Cadogan was 
sent on an embassy to Vienna, he was one 
day invited by Prince Eugene to be pres- 
ent at a review of the Austrian Cuiras- 
siers, which were a body of ten thousand 
9* 



102 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

horse, and said to be the finest troops in 
Europe: during the review, Prince Eu- 
gene turned to an English officer, who had 
accompanied my Lord Cadogan, and ask- 
ed him if he thought " that any ten thousand 
English horse could beat those Austrians" — 
" I do not know, Sir" says the Engish offi- 
cer, " whether they could or not : but 1 know 
that Jive thousand would fry/' This was a 
spirited answer, and such as the question 
deserved ; for in this instance the prince 
seemed to have dropt his politeness. 

I was at Tunbridge in 1758, where I 
met with the Chevalier Taylor, the famous 
oculist. He seems to understand the anat- 
omy of the eye perfectly well; he has a 
fine hand and good instruments, and per- 
forms all his operations with great dexteri- 
ty ; for the rest, Ellum homo confidens ! 
who undertakes any thing (even impossible 
cases) and promises every thing. No char- 
latan ever appeared with fitter and more 
excellent talents, or to a greater advantage ; 
he has a good person, is a natural orator, 
and has a facility of learning foreign lan- 
guages. He has travelled over all Europe, 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 103 

and always with an equipage suitable to a 
man of the first quality, and Lath been in- 
troduced to most of the sovereign princes, 
from whom he has received many marks 
of their liberality and esteem, titles, orders, 
medals, rings, pictures, &c. He is an hon- 
orary member of many foreign universities, 
and has published his works in Latin, Eng- 
lish, French, Spanish, and Italian. He pre- 
tends to know the secrets of all courts, and 
to be as skilful a politician as he is an ocu- 
list. He returned to England, as he told 
me, in hopes of being immediately intro- 
duced to his * Majesty, and recommended 
as the only person able to cure the King's 
eyes; but he has not hitherto succeeded 
in this attempt, nor in other respects been 
so highly considered by his own country- 
men as by foreign nations. The following 
character, which I had drawn of him, he 
entreated me to publish, as what he con- 
ceived would do him honour. 

* King George II. 



104 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Elogium 

HlC EST, HIC VIR EST, 

Quern docti, indoctique omnes impense mirantur, 

Johannes Taylor; 

Csecigenorum, csecorura et caecutientium 

Quotquot sunt ubique, 

Spes unica, solamen, salus. 

Quorum causa 

Cunctas Europae peragravif regiones ; 

Neque usquam gentium fuit hospes, 

Nisi iu patria sua. 

Russicis, Suecicis, Lusitanicis, 

Titulis, phaleris, torquibus 

Decorus i need it : 

Totoque orbe nemini cuiquam ignotus 

Nisi sibi. 

Orator summus non fact us, sed natus, 

Vocis, perinde atque manus celeritate insignis, 

Scit Latine, Gallice, Italice, Germanice fari, 

Omnes callens linguas 

iEque ac sermonem patrium. 

Vultu compto, corpore procero, fronte urbana glo- 

riosus, 

Ingenioque prasdilus prope singular!, 

Artem amandi, et amoris remedium 

Plenius et melius Nasone ipso 

Edidicit, docuit, exercuit, 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 105 

Mirificus fabulator, magnificus promissor, 

Rerum copi&, artiumque varietate abundans, 

Sese exhibet, effert, praedicat 

in gymnasiis, in gynaeceis, in conviviis, in triviis; 

Philosophando gloriam magnam adeptus, 

Maximam saltando. 

In peregrinis civitatibus 

Equos, servosque innumeros, quos vix Satrapes 

Potest habere, 

Hie alit. 

Domi vero, 

Quae est moderatio animi sui, 

Uno vili mancipio 

Contentus vivit. 

In celeberrimas cooptatus est Academias : 

Neque tamen moribus, neque vultu, neque vestitu 

Videtur Academicus. 

Regnorum omnium arcana scrutari potuit : 
Neque tamen speculator sagax, 
Neque regis cujusquam legatus, 
Neque usquam fuit vir aulicus. 

Prsemia, dona, permulta, amplissima accepit; 

Permulta corrasit, pecunia? appetentior: 

Et nondum, eheu ! Locupletatur. 

Plures scripsit libros, qiiam quivis possit legere: 

Qui f icinorihus tarneu suis egregiis 

Haud sufficiunt enumerandis, 



106 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Sexcentis primariis viris lumina reddidit : 

Plusquam sexcenfis, sed plebeiis, 

Sed miseris, ademit. 

Turn vero civibus suis praecipue colendus, 
Turn carminibus, docte* Morelle, tuis celebrandus, 
Turn diplomatibus honorificis, et muneribus regiis 

donandus; 

Si Caesarem nostrum, pium, fortem, semper Augus- 

tum, 

Faceret bene oculatum, 

Et malos, siqui sunt, Consiliarios 

Tiresia caeciores.f 

There is no place I have ever seen 
which I review with so much pleasure and 
satisfaction as the place of my school 
education,! and the scenes of my boyhood. 

* Qui Iaudes hujua ophthalmic? cecinit carminibus 
Greets et Anglicanis. 

f I have had an opportunity since this Elogium 
was written, of viewing our Chevalier more nearly, 
and considering him with greater attention. 1 have 
therefore been able to improve the Elogium, and 
add some new features to his portrait ; of which I 
have printed a few copies to oblige my friends. 

X My mother having died of the small- pox when 
I was about seven years old, I was sent by my 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 107 

I feel a thrilling secret joy in every street 
I pass through How many agreeable tri- 
fles and little amusements do I recollect at 
almost every step! All my actions were 
then very innocent, and my errours and 
follies excusable : not so after I had enter- 
ed into the great world I 

Mr. Lesley, a very eminent nonjuring 
clergyman, the author of the Rehearsals, 
and of many other political and controver- 
sial tracts during the reigns of King Wil- 
liam and Queen Anne, left two sons, with 
whom I was intimately acquainted. They 
were both men of good parts and learning; 
but in their disposition and manners they 
were so very different, that they did not 
seem to be of the same family, nor even of 
the same nation. The elder brother was 
overbearing and talkative; and, though he 
was sometimes an agreeable companion, 
yet he oftener tired and disgusted his com- 
pany. He was so careless of his private 

grandfather, Sir William Smyth, to Salisbury, and 
placed under the care of Mr. Taylor, the master of 
the free-school in that city. There were at that time 
two very flourishing schools in Salisbury. 



108 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

affairs, that he could never be prevailed 
on to examine his agent's accounts. I have 
sometimes jocularly asked him if he knew 
the value of our coin, or the real difference 
between a piece of copper and a piece of 
silver of the same weight ; for often, when 
I have been walking with him in the streets, 
he has given a beggar, who importuned 
him for an halfpenny, half a crown (for he 
always gave the first piece that came to his 
hand) ; but not from any principle of char- 
ity, but merely from his contempt of mon- 
ey, and to be rid of the beggar's importu- 
nity ; so that a small number of artful men- 
dicants would often watch his motions, and 
by this means empty his pockets before 
he returned home. 

* Robin to beggars, with a curse, 
Flings the last shilling in his purse: 
And, when the coachman comes for pay, 
The rogue must call another day. 

Young Harry, when the poor are pressing, 
Gives them a penny, and God's blessing; 
But, always careful of the main, 
With twopence left walks home in rain. 

* This is part of a manuscript poem, written by Dr. 
Swift, in which, in his humourous manner, he. has 
drawn a character of the two brothers. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 109 

Harry Lesley, the younger brother, 
who had been a colonel in the Spanish ar- 
my, was grave, modest, and very well bred. 
He seldom talked of any thing which he 
did not perfectly understand ; and he was 
always heard with pleasure. With an es- 
tate, worth about 500Z. per annum, he made 
a good figure, kept a very hospitable table, 
and was universally esteemed by all his 
neighbours and acquaintance; for he was 
a gentleman of great honour and probity, 
and great goodness of heart. In his last 
sickness he ordered his manuscripts to be 
sent to me : amongst which are many es- 
says which are worthy of being offered to 
the publick. 

Baxter's Phenomenon of Dreaming 
hath given me greater satisfaction than any 
thing else which I have read on the same 
subject: and yet there are many objections 
which may be made to his hypothesis. And 
it seems to me a certain truth, that both 
our reason and philosophy must ever be 
puzzled bow to account for the operations 
of our souls when we are sleeping; very 
often, indeed, when we are awake : for 
10 



HO DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

without a bribe, and when we are not urg- 
ed by any governing passion, we find our- 
selves, on many occasions, impelled, by an 
irresistible fatality, to act contrary to the 
dictates both of our reason and our con- 
science, Novi meliora proboque — Deter iora 
sequor may, I fear, be said with truth of the 
whole human species : at least, upon a strict 
examination of ourselves, our friends, and 
acquaintance, we shall discover but few 
characters which are exempt from this im- 
putation. But to return to the phenome- 
non of dreams : we must either contradict 
all history, both sacred and profane, or we 
must agree that our souls, at some times, 
seem to exercise, in our dreams, a very ex- 
traordinary intuitive faculty; and either 
by their own powers are able to discover 
future events, or, according to Baxter's 
system, by the information of other spirits. 
I do not discredit the story of Brutus and 
his evil genius ; but I believe the whole to 
have passed in a dream, although Brutus 
might think himself awake. Cicero's re- 
cal from banishment was foretold ina dream, 
which he has recited ; but for which he en- 
deavours to account in an unphilosophical, 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. Ill 

and, indeed, in a very absurd manner. And 
because he was of a sect whose first princi- 
ples were to doubt of every thing, he would 
not, therefore, acknowledge a truth which 
he had experienced in himself. I have as 
little superstition as any man living, and I 
acknowledge that there is generally great 
confusion and incoherence in our dreams, 
and that many ridiculous scenes are in those 
hours obtruded on us. But, however, I 
cannot help concluding, from my own ex- 
perience, that some of our dreams are the 
effect of a divine agency. The most in- 
teresting and most important occurrence 
of my whole life was foretold me in a dream, 
though it was not verified till thirty years 
after the prediction. 

I do not know any better rules or max- 
ims than the three following, which were 
framed by the old monk, to enable a man 
to pass through life with ease and security : 

Nunqnim male loqui de superioribus. 
Fungi officio taliter qualihr. 

Sinere insanum mundum vadere, quo vult ; nam vult 
vadere, qud vult. 



112 DR. KING'S ANECDOTEb 

The first of these may be greatly improv- 
ed by adding St. 's precept, To speak 

evil of no man. And whoever is so happy, 
either from his natural disposition or his 
good judgment, constantly to observe this 
precept, will certainly acquire the love 
and esteem of the whole community of 
which he is a member. But such a man is 
the ram avis in terris ; and, among all my 
acquaintance, I have known only one per- 
son to whom I can with truth assign this 
character. The person I mean is the pres- 
ent Lord Pitsligo of Scotland. I not only 
never heard this gentleman speak an ill 
word of any man living, but I always ob- 
served him ready to defend any other per- 
son who was ill spoken of in his company. 
If the person accused were of his acquaint- 
ance, my Lord Pitsligo would always 
find something good to say of him as a 
counterpoise. If he were a stranger, and 
quite unknown to him, my Lord would 
urge in his defence the general corruption 
of manners, and the frailties and infirmities 
of human nature. 

It is no wonder that such an excellent 
man, who, besides, is a polite scholar, and 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 113 

has many other great and good qualities, 
should be universally admired and belov- 
ed, insomuch, that I persuade myself he 
has not one enemy in the world. At least, 
to this general esteem and affection for his 
person his preservation must be owing. 
For, since his attainder,* he has never re- 
moved far from his own house, protected 
by men of different principles, and un- 
sought for and unmolested by the govern- 
ment. 

It was an absurd attempt of those con- 
troversial writers, who endeavour to prove, 
against Warburton, that the ancient Jews 
believed the doctrine of a future state; 
since there is not any where in the books 
of Moses so much as a distant hint of this 
doctrine. The whole of the Jewish re- 
ligion is comprised in the ten command- 

* It was not ambition, but a love for his country 
and a conscientious regard to his duty, which drew 
this honest man (however he might be mistaken) 
into the rebellion of 1745. A great prince, who had 
been well informed of my Lord Pitsligo's charac- 
ter, would immediately have pardoned him, and 
have restored the little estate which he had forfeited. 
10* 



114 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

merits; and, if we believe that these laws 
were delivered to Moses by God himself, 
we must likewise believe that God him- 
self determined that the Jews should re- 
main altogether ignorant of a future state. 
In these laws the punishment which is 
threatened, and the rewards which are 
promised, are limited to this life only ; for, 
although offenders are threatened to be 
punished in their posterity, even to the 
third and fourth generation, yet this de- 
nunciation of God's vengeance would pro- 
bably little influence or restrain the ac- 
tions of a wicked man, who knew he 
should himself be insensible of the punish- 
ment which was to be inflicted. Warbur- 
ton, indeed, to support his favourite hypo- 
thesis, declares his opinion, that this pun- 
ishment, denounced against the posterity 
of those Jews who transgressed, was more 
terrible to them than any personal punish- 
ment. But this is a postulalum which can- 
not be granted, and mav easilv be dis- 
proved. 

The promise of long life to a people 
who had no prospect after it, and who be- 
lieved they were to die as the beasts of 
the field., might be an inducement to 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. II* 

virtue, and to an obedience of the laws. 
But was this promise always fulfilled? 
Were not the best men among; the Jews, 
as in other nations, often cut off in their 
youth? Or was long life always a bless- 
ing? We know it was not. Old age is 
necessarily subjected to many infirmities 
of the mind as well as of the body. And 
the old age of Solomon, who had been so 
eminently distinguished by the oracle of 
God, tarnished all the glory of his former 
life and reign. 

It hath been asserted by most of the an- 
cient and modern Christian writers, and is 
acknowledged by Warburton, that Moses, 
who had been bred up in all the learning 
of the Egyptians, believed the immortality 
of the soul, and a future state of rewards 
and punishments. But he carefully con- 
cealed this doctrine from the people, in 
obedience, as may be supposed, to the ex- 
press command of God : for, if it were not 
so, would not he have taught a doctrine 
which he could have applied with more 
efficacy to the establishment of his power 
and government, than ail his other ordi- 
nances, or those various arts and strata- 
gems, which, from time to time, he was 



116 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

obliged to make use of to keep the people 
in subjection? 

Jt is difficult to pronounce with cer- 
tainty against any Latin production, es- 
pecially when the author has acquired a 
reputation for his skill in that language; 
and yet nothing is more common than to 
hear a little pedant, or a bare smatterer in 
the Latin tongue, criticise the works of an 
elegant scholar, and magisterially affirm 
that such and such expressions are not 
classical. I have even known some per- 
sons, who were very conversant in (he 
Latin classieks, which they had made their 
principal study, expose themselves by a 
too hasty censure of this kind* In the 
year 1738, I published Miltojnis Episto- 
la ad Polliojnem. As this was a political 
satire, and nothing in the same manner had 
been published before in thi< country, it 
was universally read by those who either 
understood, or pretended to understand 
the language, and was frequently extolled 
or condemned according to the prejudice 
of party : there was not a courtier, or a 
creature of the prime minister's, who did 



OP HIS OWN TIMES. llf 

not set himself up as a profound critick, 
and censured the style of a composition 
which perhaps he could not read. How- 
ever, I must confess there were gome men 
of learning who found fault with the dic- 
tion, and would not allow the Latin to be 
pure and classical ; which sentence they 
pronounced either against the conviction 
of their own judgment, (a part which envy 
will often act) or perhaps, which I rather 
suspect, for want of a more intimate ac- 
quaintance with the language. There 
were at that time two gentlemen in Lon- 
don, Hume Campbell, the late Lord 
Register of Scotland, and Hooke, the au- 
thor of the Roman history, with whom I 
had always lived in some degree of friend- 
ship: they had both studied the ancient 
classicks ; but doubting their own judgment, 
as well as my sufficiency, they consulted 
Maittaire, and desired his opinion of the 
Miltojnis Epistola, in respect only to the 
Latinity. Maittaire marked eleven ex- 
pressions as unclassical. These were com- 
municated to me in a letter, which my 
friends sent me to Oxford. The same 
evening, by the return of the post, I an- 



113 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

swered nine of Maittaire's exceptions, 
and produced all my authorities from Vir- 
gil, Ovid, and Tibidlus j and by the post 
following I sent authorities for the other 

CD 

two. I could not help remarking that 
Maittaire, some little time before, had pub- 
lished new editions of tho?e poets, from 
whence T drew my authorities, and had ad- 
ded a very copious index to every author : 
and in these indexes were to be found 
most of the phrases to which he had ex- 
cepted in the Miltonis Epistola. 

When I published the oration, which I 
pronounced at the opening of the Rad- 
CLitFE library, I was immediately attac k- 
ed by one Squire of Cambridge, who halh 
since been greatly promoted in the (hutch, 
and i-, I think, Clerk of the Closet to the 
Prince of Wales. He asserted that six or 
seven expiessions in this speech are barbar- 
ous Latin, though ihey are all to be found 
in the best Latin authors, as Terence, Tully, 
Casar, Sallust, kc. He was particularly 
so unfortunate as to usher in his criticisms 
wilh condemning the phrase fortiter et con- 
stanler senlire, and to spend three or four 
whole pages to prove that this is neither 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 119 

Latin nor sense: that is, that Cicero could 
neither write one or the other ; for this is 
Cicero's Latin, and not mine. See the 
third book of his Tusculan Questions, and 
his oration for Sulla. 

The rest of this critick's answer consists 
in low scurrilities and personal abuse, such 
as may be always expected from men of 
mean birth, who in whatever station of life 
they may happen to be placed, even when 
they attain the highest ^dignities, and live 
within the air of the court, always retain 
the language and manners of their father's 
house. 

Another person, from whom I received 
the same rude and dirty treatment upon 
the same occasion, was Dr. John Burton, 
a fellow of Eton College; but he had more 
discretion than Squiue. He did not ven- 
ture to criticise any particular passages, 
but censured my speech by the lump, and 
condemned the whole as bad Latin ; and 
to give the greater weight to his criticism, 
he made no scruple to add a false fact, 
roundly affirming, that I first wr't it in 
English, and then translated it into Latin, 
as if lie had stood by me whilst I was writ- 



1*20 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

ino\ The rest of his work is a collection 
of all the foul and scurrilous names with 
which the Latin language could furnish him, 
which he hath liberally bestowed upon me, 
intermixed with many praises and compli- 
ments which he bestowed on himself. I 
answered this performance by translating 
all the abusive names which were given me, 
and the fine appellations which Burton 
had assumed to himself; and I printed the 
whole catalogue on a large sheet of coarse 
paper, such as Grubstreet ballads are gen- 
erally printed on, and delivered the impres- 
sion, which was a very large one, to a scav- 
enger, to be cried about the streets of Ox- 
ford, Windsor, and Eaton. And in truth, 
this is the only proper answer that can be 
made to a work of this kind ; for foul lan- 
guage and hard names, when a man does 
not deserve them, like an overcharged gun, 
will always recoil on the author. 

Clodius accusat moechos, &o. is a char- 
acter which is to be found in every coun- 
try. How often have I heard a sordid mi- 
ser accuse his neighbour of avarice, and a 
prodigal spendthrift prescribe rules of econ- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 121 

omy ! Lee, who is the proudest man, and 
the greatest hypocrite in England, preach- 
es against pride and hypocrisy, and Bur- 
ton, whom I have mentioned above,* offi- 
ciously concerns himself in the private af- 
fairs of every family to which he is admit- 
ted, at the same time neglecting his own 
business and his duty as a parish priest. In 
these sermons likewise, the preacher, who 
is rude, ovei bearing, and in every respect 
very ill-bred, enlarges with great vehe- 
mence on the duty of good manners, and 
decent and polite behaviour. Non vides id 
manticce, &c. may perhaps be urged as some 
kind of apology for Burton, and all others 
of the same cast and complexion, who are 
so vain and opinionative, that they are un- 
able to espy any fault in themselves. But 
the hypocrite is sensible of the crime which 
he practises to deceive you, and knows he 
is masked, and for the same purpose as an 
highway man who robs with a piece of black 
crape on his face, 

# Who, whilst I am writing this, hath published 
three sermons on the following text, That ¥£ study 

TO BE QUIET AND DO YOUR OWN BUSINESS. 



11 



122 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Somnium Academici. I mounted with 
great velocity above the clouds, until I 
found myself in the middle region of the 
air. Here was a new world, which J soon 
perceived to be the seat of happy souls ; 
who, after they shall have continued in it 
the space of 10,000 years, will be removed 
to a more glorious orb, and again, after 
some ages, to another, still ascending high- 
er and higher, till after some millions of 
years they attain the last state of purifica- 
tion. Every scene which presented itself 
to my view filled me with delight, and I 
felt a pleasure which no man who treads 
on the earth is capable of enjoying or 
describing. Although there were myriads 
of inhabitants in this happy region, yet 
there were no wars or tumults, no quarrels 
or disputes, no disorder or confusion. 
For as here were no ranks, titles, or dis- 
tinctions, but all were equal, and were 
sensible likewise that this equality must 
ever remain, so there was no place for 
pride or ambition, for envy or hatred, for 
poverty or riches, or for that mad zeal and 
enthusiasm, by which so many flourishing 
states and kingdoms of the earth have been 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. f 123 

totally ruined. Every soul I met with 
saluted me in a most courteous manner ; 
and I knew at first sight not only some of 
my contemporaries, but many eminent 
persons, who are recorded both in ancient 
and modern history, and some who have 
been dead near 3000 years. The first I 
particularly remarked was Ovid, in a cir- 
cle of the best and most learned poets of 
the Augustan age, amongst whom I ob- 
served seven of my countrymen, Chaucer, 
Spenser, Waller, Cowley, Walsh, Parnel, 
and Gay: and I saw at a small distance 
Swift and Arbuthnot coming to join them. 
As I always loved and admired Ovid for 
the elegancy of his wit, and the sweetness 
of his manners, I addressed myself to him; 
he received me with great politeness, and 
we presently entered into an easy and fa- 
miliar conversation. He acquainted me 
with many curious anecdotes of the court 
of Augustus, and some very remarkable 
occurrences of his own time, as well as of 
the former ages of Home, which no his- 
torian hath mentioned ; this led me to in- 
quire of him the cause of his banishment, 
which I told him was unknown to tfee 



124 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

world at this day ; at the same time I ac- 
quainted him with the ridiculous conjec- 
tures of his commentators. He seemed a 
little surprised, and assured me that the 
day he went into banishment, the empe- 
ror's whole court, and all the citizens of 
Home, knew the real cause of his disgrace, 
and he wondered that an affair which was 
so publick at that time should not have 
been transmitted to posterity together 
with his works. He asked me whether I 
had ever considered with attention the fol- 
lowing lines : 

Cur aliquid vidi ? Cur noxia lumina feci I 
Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi ? 

fnscius J die on vidit sine veste Dianam : 
Proeda fuit canibus non minus Me suis. 

Scilicet in superis ctiam fort una hie ml a est : 
Nee veniani loeso numine casus habet. 

Iff this passage, says Ovid, I have plainly 
intimated that my disgrace was owing to 
something which I had inadvertently seen, 
and not to any crime. I will tell you the 
story in a few words: I was acquainted 
with a lady of the court, whose name was 
Glodia ; she was descended from an old 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 12* 

Patrician family, and was about thirty 
years of age. She had a good face, was 
well shaped, and did not want wit. Her 
behaviour was modest, and her reputation 
untouched. I was always pleased to be of 
her party, and she seemed to be very fond 
of my company. As I had leave to visit 
at all hours, it unfortunately happened, 
that, entering her apartment one morning 
very early, I found the old emperor with 
her, and in such an attitude, as convinced 
me that my female friend was not a JLu- 
cretia. I retired with great precipitation; 
but 1 feared that I was undone from that 
moment. The jealousy and vindictive 
temper of Augustus, and the rage of the 
lady in being thus discovered, soon pro- 
nounced my sentence. However, this 
punishment, which I so pitifully complain- 
ed of in all my letters from Tomos, and 
which I then considered as the greatest 
calamity, really proved the most fortunate 
circumstance of my life; for during my 
exile I made many ji*st and serious reflec- 
tions, which I never allowed myself to 
make in my prosperity, which purified my 
passions, and at length disposed my mind 
11 * 



126 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

to resign itself to the will of providence. 
I was extremely pleased with this account 
which Ovid crave me of himself, and to be 
so particularly informed of the real cause of 
his banishment, which I resolved to pub- 
lish the first opportunity, for the benefit of 
the learned world. Here, the Roman poet * 
more attentively considering me, asked me, 
" whether I was dead ?" I told him, " I was 
not : but T hoped, as I was old and infirm, 
this would soon be my fate, and that I 
should be destined to ascend again *o those 
happy mansions, and frequently have the 
pleasure of finding nnself in the same cir- 
cle!" This humane and gentle spirit en- 
couraged me to ask him an hundred ques- 
tions concerning Rome, and the state of 
literature in the Augustan age : and 1 con- 
eluded with requesting him to give me the 
real character of the emperor. " If I were 
capable," says Ovid, "of feeling any re- 
morse or disquietude in these happy re- 
gions, the flattering speeches which I be- 
stowed on the emperor would create in my 
mind no small uneasiness. He by no means 
deserved any part of that veneration which 
was so universally paid him. He was false, 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 12f 

cruel, and inexorable ; and the bloody ex- 
ecutions which he ordered during his tri- 
umvirate, and the great number of persons 
of quality and distinguished merit whom 
he put to death upon the slightest suspicion, 
after he was sole emperor, were a sufficient 
proof of his natural disposition, and must 
stain his memory as long as his name shall 
be remembered in the world. He put his 
tutor and companion to death, and with his 
own hands pulled out the eyes of Aulus 
Gellius the praetor. He was not softened 
by age, or moved by the widow or orphan. 
You see that all my submissions, and the 
united interest of all my noble friends, 
could not prevail on him to grant me so 
small a favour as to change the place of my 
banishment; though he was conscious that 
I had been guilty of no crime. I doubt 
whether he had personal courage : it is cer- 
tain he had no fortitude of mind; a thun- 
der storm would drive him into a vault, or 
into any dark hole where he thought the 
lightning could not reach him. He was a 
sordid lover of money : and although he 
could command the wealth of the whole 
world, he was never generous to men of 



128 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

honour, nor ever bestowed a princely re- 
ward on any person of great merit and learn- 
ing. Virgil and Horace owed their for- 
tunes to Maecenas only. The latter was 
content with a moderate estate, and as he 
knew Augustus perfectly well, he declin- 
ed accepting some lucrative offices which 
had been offered him; but which required 
his personal al tendance on the emperor. 
To conclude the chaiacter of this man, he 
was every day gui&f of some base and 
mean action, either to gratify his lust and 
avarice, or to discovei the real sentiments 
of the Roman people."* When Ovid had 
done, I repeated Scaliger's verses, in which 
he introduces our poet speaking to Augus- 
tus. Ovid seemed to be much pleased 
with the two last lines, 

Cum te laudarem, tunc sum mentitus: ob unum hoc 
Exilii fuerat debita causa mihi. 

The art of speaking in PUBLicK seems 
to be little understood in this country, not- 
withstanding the necessity of practising it 
so frequently in the senate, in the pulpit, 

* How were we degenerated when we made this 
man a God ! 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 129 

and at the bar; and notwithstanding a good 
speaker in any profession may always make 
his way to riches and honours : a pulpit 
orator can scarcely fail of arriving to some 
eminent dignity in the church, and a law- 
yer, with the same talents, of obtaining 
some of those great offices annexed to his 
profession. Even in the practice of physick 
this talent will be found very useful : and 
I knew a physician, who, although he had 
a very moderate share of medical knowl- 
edge, and was little skilled in the learned 
languages, yet by the assistance of strong 
natural parts, with an happy and graceful 
manner of speaking and addressing his pa- 
tients, acquired by his practice 3000/. a 
year. It is a matter therefore of aston- 
ishment to me, that the art of speaking is 
not more diligently cultivated in the Brit- 
ish Islands, especially in the universities, 
where it ought to be studied with the great- 
est assiduity. To this neglect must be im- 
puted that languid manner in which our 
clergy generally deliver their sermons ; 
so that a discourse, which may be unexcep- 
tionable as to its doctrine or argument, or 
even its language, will be so far from ex- 



130 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

citing the devotion, or convincing the judg- 
ment of the congregation, that it will not 
command their attention. Cicero, in his 
beautiful treatise De Oratore, quotes an 
expression of Roscius, the celebrated come- 
dian, Caput artis est, Decere, which is a 
very significant word, and in truth means 
every thing by which the speaker may con- 
ciliate the esteem and affection, and ac- 
quire the applause of his audience. Ac- 
tion, to which Demosthenes attributes the 
whole excellency of an orator, is compre- 
hended in this expression. And here, in 
regard to action, I will mention one thing, 
which I do not remember to have been re- 
maiked by any of our countrymen who 
have treated on this subject, that the speak- 
er's action must be accommodated to the 
genius and manners of his country ; for 
the same action which may please in one 
country, would not be suffered in another. 
I could name some eminent preachers, who 
were the admiration of all Paris, and yet, 
on account of their action, would have 
been ridiculed by an English congregation. 
And, moreover, I venture on this occasion 
to affirm, that however a player may be 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 131 

taught action, yet the action of an orator 
must always be natural, and the effect of 
those expressions by which he is animated. 
My friends have often assured me, that 
whenever I spoke in the theatre, they were 
pleased with my action : but I scarce knew 
when I used it, and when I did not, and it 
was always produced by what 1 felt within. 
The young gentlemen who spoke verses 
in the theatre when the Earl of Westmor- 
land was installed Chancellor of the Uni- 
versity were taught their action by Sheri- 
dan the player. But their action was 
outree and ungraceful. Now, besides his 
action, the speaker should take care to be 
properly dressed, suitably to his age, his 
station, and his country. This is an in- 
struction certainly included in the De- 
cere, and however insignificant it may be 
thought by some, is of no small advan- 
tage; more especially if the orator be a 
graceful person, which scarce ever fails to 
prejudice the audience in his favour.* 

* Valerius Maximus mentions only three great 
Roman orators, C. Gracchus, Cicero, and Hor- 
tensius. Of the last he remarks, Q. Hortensius 
plurimum in corporis decor o motu t epositum credens, 



V3Z DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

It is a great defect in the education of 
our youth, in both the universities, that 
they do not sufficiently apply themselves 
to the study of their mother tongue. By 
this means it happens, that some very 
learned men and polite scholars are not 
able to express themselves with propriety 
in common conversation, and that when 
they are discoursing on a subject which 
they understand perfectly well. I have 
been acquainted with* three persons only 
who spoke English with that elegance and 
propriety, that if all they said had been 
immediately committed to writing, any 
judge of the English language would have 
pronounced it an excellent r and very beau- 
tiful style. And yet among the French 

penl plus studii in eotlcm elaborando, quam in ipsa 
eloqucntia affcctunda hnpendit. And he adds, liaque 
constat iEsopuM et Roscium ludknr artis pcritissimos 
virosyillo (scil. Hortensio) causas agaric, in corona 
frequenter asstiiisse^ ut foro petitos gestus in scenam 
refer rent. 

* Atterbury, (he exiled Bishop of Rochester. 
Dr. Gower, Provost of Worcesier College. 
Johnson, the author of the Eugiish Dictionary, of 
the Ramblcr t &c. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 133 

and Italians we meet with few learned 
men who are not able to express them- 
selves with ease and elegance in their own 
language ; and if the same freedom of 
speech were allowed in the parliament of 
Paris, or senate of Rome, which may be 
used in an English house of commons, 
their orators would be more numerous 
and eminent than we can boast of. Ob- 
serving this delect so universal in the En- 
glish nation, I have always advised the 
young gentlemen who were under my 
care in the university, or with whom I had 
any connexion or acquaintance (especially 
those who had parts, and discovered an 
inclination to improve themselves), to get 
by heart a page in one of our English 
classicks every morning, in order to speak 
their own tongue with facility, and acquire 
a good stvle in writing. This method I 
once recommended to two brothers, young 
gentlemen of a noble family, who had 
been educated in Holland, and on their 
return to their own country could speak 
no other language than French or Dutch: 
they pursued my advice with such assi- 
duity that they both became eminent 



134 DR, KING'S ANECDOTES 

speakers in parliament ; and (he eldest, who 
is now a peer, is esteemed inferiour to 
no orator in the House of Lords. But 
after all, in my opinion, the art of oratory 
is not to be taught ; it must be use and 
experience, and a man's own judgment, 
which must form the orator. There is 
sometimes a certain crisis in the publick 
affairs, but oftener it is the nature of 
the government which excites youth to the 
study of eloquence. For fifty or sixty 
years before the ruin of the Roman re- 
publick there were more orators in Rome 
than are now to be found in all Europe; 
and yet I doubt whether in Rome, during 
the same period, there were as many learn- 
ed men and profound scholars as are this 
day existing in the British Islands. Cice- 
ro affirms, that no man can be a perfect 
orator unless he be well skilled in all other 
arts and sciences ; but his contemporaries 
seem to have been of a different opinion. 
The Roman senators generally thought 
they had a sufficient stock of learning if 
they were well skilled in the Civil law, and 
understood the Greek language; and our 
parliament orators esteem themselves learn- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 135 

ed men, if they are pretty well acquainted 
with the British constitution.* The most 
eminent lawyers in England, who by a 
constant use and practice must necessarily 
be ready speakers, know very little out of 
their own profession. For a century and 
an half we have had only two High Chan- 
cellors who could be called learned men, 
though many of them have been reputed 
excellent orators: and in our days, the 
man who enjoyed this great office for 
twenty years, and during that time dictated 
to the House of Peers, did not learn Latin, 
as I am well assured, until after he was 
made Lord Chancellor. Sir Robert 
Walpole, who by his oratory raised him- 
self from a small estate to the height of 

* Amongst our numerous pleaders at the bar, I 
never heard any one argue methodically except my 
Lord Mansfield ; which I ascribe to the logical 
lectures which he attended in the university. I have 
heard his predecessor Rider, when he was Attorney- 
general, introduce all his arguments in such a con- 
fused and indistinct manner, that, although he said 
perhaps on the occasion all that could be said, yet I 
was not able to retain any part of his speech. He 
was in other respects a very ungraceful speaker. 



136 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

power, and disposed of all employments 
in the British dominions for many years, 
had not any great stock of learning. He 
was indeed not unskilled in the classicks; 
some knowledge of those authors he could 
not but retain, as he had been formerly a 
fellow of a College in Cambridge. I knew 
Sir William Wyndham, who was allowed 
to be the best and most graceful speaker 
in the House of Commons for many years 
before he died, but he was not eminent in 
any branch of literature. Mr. Pitt, who 
has acquired such a great reputation for 
his eloquence, and a greater still for his 
administration, and the success which has 
attended it, has not much learning to boast 
of, unless it be some little acquaintance 
with the Latin classicks. I could name 
several others, in both Houses of Parlia- 
ment, who are busy speakers, and harangue 
on all occasions, who would be greatly 
puzzled in reading one of Tally *s orations. 
The truth is, that not only all philosophical 
stuoies, and the abstruser sciences, are of 
little use to our parliament orators, but 
eve;, without a tincture of what we call 
polite literature, they are many of them 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. V3J 

able to talk themselves into esteem and 
good employments. Every age produces 
men (*very few indeed) who seem to be 
orators born, who not only without the aid 
of learning, but without use and exercise, 
which are so necessary to the formation of 
an orator, are endowed with a talent of 
speaking and replying readily an J fluenily. 
T have heard a speech from Hodges, the 
present town-clerk of London (who was 
bred a bookseller, and 1 am well assured 
is unskilled in any language but his own,) 
which gave me more pleasure and satisfac- 
tion t'jan 1 Lave received from the ha- 
rangues of many of our celebrated orators, 
whether at the bar or in the senate. But, 
after all, a man who has good parts and a 
good judgment, and is ambitious of ac- 
quiring die character of an orator, should 
form himself after the ancient Greek and 

* Two or three perhaps in a century. Such men 
may properly be called geniuses. Indeed our me- 
thodists and our enthusiasts of all denominations 
pretend to the gift of speaking; and it must be ac- 
knowledged they speak with great fluency and volu- 
bility : but it is always a flow of absurdities, blas- 
phemy, and nonsense. 

12 * 



138 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Roman models. He should study with 
great application the orations of Demosthe- 
nes and Tally ; and he should always have 
before him that most excellent work of 
Tully's, De Oratore, wherein the precepts 
are conveyed in such a pure and elegant 
style, that the same are the best examples 
of what this great author proposes to 
teach. 

Butler, who was predecessor to the 
present Bishop of Durham, being applied 
to on some occasion for a charitable su In- 
scription, asked his steward what money 
he had in the house. The steward inform- 
him, "there was five hundred pounds." 
"Five hundred pounds!" said the Bishop: 
" what a shame for a Bishop to have such 
a sum in his possession !" and ordered it 
all to be immediately given to the poor. 
That spirit of charity and benevolence 
which possessed this excellent man hath 
not appeared in any other part of the 
hierarchy since the beginning of the pre* 
sent century. His successor, Dr. Trevor, 
possessed of a large estate, besides the 
revenue of his rich bishoprick, has a dif- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 139 

ferent turn of mind, but in common with 
many of his own order. To speak freely, 
I know nothing that has brought so great 
a reproach on the Church of England as 
the avarice and ambition of our bishops. 
Chandler, Bishop of Durham, Willis, 
Bishop of Winchester, Potter, Archbish- 
op of Canterbury, Gibson and Sherlock, 
Bishops of London, all died shamefully 
rich, some of them worth more than 100,- 
000/. I must add to these my old antago- 
nist Gilbert, predecessor to Drummond, 
the present Archbishop of York. Some 
of these prelates were esteemed great 
divines (and I know they were learned 
men), but they could not be called good 
Christians. The great wealth which they 
heaped up, the fruits of their bishopricks, 
and which they left to enrich their families, 
was not their own; it was due to God, to 
the church, to their poor brethren. The 
history of the good Samaritan, which was 
so particularly explained by Christ him- 
self to his disciples, ought to be a monito- 
ry to all their successors. I knew Bur- 
nett, Bishop of Salisbury : he was a furi- 
ous party-man, and easily imposed on by 



140 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

any lying spirit of his own faction ; but he 
was a better pastor than any man who is 
now seated on the bishops' bench. Al- 
though he left a large family when he 
died, three sons and two daughters (if I 
rightly remember), yet he left them noth- 
ing more than theii mother's fortune* He 
always declared, thai he should think him- 
self guilty of the greatest crime, if be 
were to raise fortunes for his children out 
of the revenue of his bishopri.-k. It was 
no small misfortune to the cause of Chris- 
tianity in this kinj'dom... that wlrafi we re- 
formed from popery, our clergy were 
permitted to mntty ; from that period 
their only ca *e (which was natural, and 
must have been foreseen) was to provide 
for their wives and children; this the 
dignitaries, who had ample revenues, could 
easily effect, with the loss, however, of 
that respect and veneration which they for- 
merly received on account of their hospi- 
tably^- and numerous charities ; but the 

# In the epistle which is read at the consecration 
of our bishops, it is required of them amongst other 
injunctions, that they should be given to hospitality ', 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 141 

grates! part of the inferiour clergy were 
incapable of making a provision for sons 
and daughters, and soon left families of 
beggars in every part of the kingdom. I 
do not inquire whether chastity ought to 
be a requisite in those who are ordained to 
serve at the altar (it certainly adds a grace 
and dignity to their function), but 1 can- 
not help observing that our government 
makes no difference between a bishop's 
wife and his concubine ; the wife has no 
place or precedence, she does not share in 
her husband's honours ; although the crea- 
tion of a simple knight, whose honours, 
like the bishop's, are for life only, gives a 
rank and title to his wife. Moreover, as an 
academician, and friend to the republick 
of letters, I have often wished that the 
canons which forbid priests to marry were 
still in force. To the celibacy of the 
bishops we owe almost all those noble 
foundations which are established in both 
our Universities ; but since the Reforma- 

not given to filthy lucre, not covetous. They like- 
wise solemnly promise to assist the indigent, and all 
strangers who are destitute of help. 



142 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Hon, we can boast of few of the episcopal 
order as benefactors to these seats of learn- 
ing. The munificent donations of Laud 
and Sheldon, in the last century, will, in- 
deed, ever be remembered ; but let it like- 
wise be remembered, that these two pre- 
lates were unmarried. Since the commence- 
ment of the present century, I do not re- 
collect one of our Right Reverends who 
ought to be recorded as an eminent patron 
of learning, or learned men ; but this will 
not appear very wonderful, if we consider 
by what spirit they were dignified — haud 
equidem spiritu sancto. And yet in the con- 
secration of these cmge d'elire bishops, they 
are said to be called to this work by the 
Holy Ghost; and in their answer to the 
archbishop, they seem to affirm it of them- 
selves. 

Quum a potentissimis illis viris, qui Im- 
jus Imperii res et rationes procurant et 
gubernant, nulla prsemia aut munera mihi 
petii, aut fortasse unquam exoptavi, sane 
quidem miror, quo malo fato natus tot ini- 
micitias ego contraxerim, aut quae sit cau- 
sa, quamobrem viri nequissimi me prseci- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 143 

pue ex omnibus eiegerint, in quern inve- 
herentur; etiarn quern accusarent gravio- 
rum criminum, et eorundem flagitioruin, 
quae insani, quae perjnri, atque ut uno ver- 
bo omnia dicam, quae ipsi fecerunt et 
prope quotidie faeiunt; ut baud sciam 
profecto an mains iste Deus horum homi- 
num et calumniatorum omnium princeps et 
magister usque adeo maledicere et mentiri 
auderet. 

This complaint is occasioned by a most 
infamous advertisement published about 
this time (Nov. 1761) in a newspaper, on 
purpose to defame me, for no other reason 
but because as a member of the Univeisity 
I attended my brethren, when with the 
whole body (our chancellor at their head) 
they wailed on the King with an address 
of congratulation on his Majesty's marriage 
with the Princess of Mecklenburgh. I have 
been reviled hitherto as a Jacobite, and 
now I am censured for going to court. Of 
my political principles, and the liitle con- 
cern I have had in publick transaclions, I 
will hereafter give a very candid account. 
But here J only desire it may be oijserved, 
that my enemies of both parties are the 



144 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

lowest of the people, who, besides the scur- 
rilous appellations which they have con- 
stantly bestowed on me, have never scru- 
pled to invent the most atrocious calum- 
nies, and to charge me with crimes which 
my honest soul abhors. I have before tak- 
en notice of the illiberal criticisms of Bur- 
ton, and of the railing accusations brought 
against me by the execrable Blacow, the 
famous dignified informer ; 1 could not 
but expect from these men all that malice 
could forge and impudence would publish : 
but it never entered into my thoughts that 
a nonjuring clergyman, who values him- 
self much upon the sanctity of his manners, 
and with whom I had once lived in some 
degree of friendship, should conspire with 
two or three villanous attorneys, who for 
a small bribe would swear away any man's 
life, to traduce me by a publick advertise- 
ment. However, I have now learned by 
my own experience, as also by the informa- 
tion of some of my particular friends, that 
the zeal of our non-juror grows more fu- 
rious as he grows in years; and yet he 
thinks every act not only lawful but expe- 
dient which may serve to blacken a man's 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 14b 

character, who, he imagines, has deserted 
his party, and been guilty of the crime 
of going to court.* I don't know wheth- 
er he would be a martyr, but no man 
is a greater enthusiast in religion than he is 
in the Jacobite cause. Hereditary right 
and passive obedience are the chief articles 
of his creed. Talk to him of pub lick spir- 
it and the amor patrice, 'tis a language 
which he does not understand ; for he would 
be content to see the nation involved in a 
general ruin, and the extirpation of three 
or four millions of our people, if by that 
means the House of Stuart might be restor- 
ed. And this is the doctrine which he 
teaches in the little congregation over which 

# There is iudeed a latent cause of this man's enmi- 
ty to me, besides the reason which he hath giveu the 
publick for his resentment. I have lately been unfor- 
tunately engaged in a law-suit with one James Bet- 
tenham, a printer, a sanctified member of Gordon's 
congregation, but one of the greatest knaves I have 
ever known. This man, who had great obligations 
to me, and taken a great deal of my money, endeav- 
oured in settling a final account to cheat me of 100Z. 
In this attempt he was assisted and justified by his 
father confessor. The whole proceedings in this af» 
fair I propose to publish immediately. 
13 



146 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

he presides as a pastor; where, while he 
boasts of the purity of his religion, and a 
steady adherence to his political system, 
he departs from every principle of human- 
ity, and devotes his country to ruin. And 
in truth this personal abuse of me for no 
other reason but for an act of duty, which 
was required from me by the body cor- 
porate of which I am a member, was in- 
tended as a reflection on my snperiours. 
Our zealot is enraged to see the extinction 
of faction, and such an harmonv established 
amongst all orders and degrees as must ne- 
cessarily prove our principal security. The 
nonjurors are now become a very insignifi- 
cant and contemptible party. And although 
the Roman Catholicks would certainly be 
very glad to see their religion re-establish- 
ed in this country, yet there are few amongst 
them who would engage in any desperate 
measures for this purpose ; and desperate 
they must be, when the odds are perhaps 
more than a thousand to one that an at- 
tempt of this kind does not succeed : which, 
as long as the present union of our people 
and their attachment to the sovereign sub- 
sist, may fairly be asserted. The means 






OF HIS OWN TIMES. 147 

by which this union hath been effected 
must needs be a matter of enquiry amongst 
all foreign politicians, since our own ob- 
serve it with a kind of wonder. A contin- 
ual success in the conduct of our publick 
affairs, and a series of victories, may justly 
be alleged as one of the principal causes of 
uniting many of those (however they have 
been distinguished by party) who are real 
lovers of their country. But this would 
not have reduced the Jacobite interest to 
the low condition in which we see it at pres- 
ent, unless some more powerful motives 
had influenced the leaders of that party to 
change their principles, and desert a cau.^e, 
to which they had so stedfastly adhered for 
so many years. As T can in some measure 
account for this defection, J shall probably 
render an accepiable service to many of 
my countrymen, and satisfy the enquiries 
of posterity, by publishing an anecdote, 
which I am now under no obligations to 
conceal, and which as the affairs of Britain 
are at present circumstanced, it would, in 
my opinion, be criminal in me to suppress. 
September 1750, I received a note 
from my Lady Primrose, who desired to 



148 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

see me immediately. As soon as I waited 
on her, she led me into her dressing-room, 

and presented me to -»-.* If I was 

surprised to find him there, I was still 
more astonished when he acquainted me 
with the motives which had induced him 
to hazard a journey to England at this 
juncture. The -impatience- of his friends 
who were in exile had formed a scheme 
which was impracticable ; but although it 
had been as feasible as they had represent- 
ed it to him, yet no preparation had been 
made* nor was any thing ready to carry it 
inio execution. He was soon convinced 
that he had been deceived, and therefore, 
after a stay in London of five days only, 
he returned to the place from whence he 
came. As I had some long conversations 
with him here, and for some years after 
held a constant correspondence with him, 
not indeed by letters but by messengers,! 
who were occasionally dispatched to him; 

# The Pretender. 

| These were not common couriers, but gentle- 
men of fortune, honour, and veracity, and on whose 
relations 1 could entirely depend. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 149 

and as during this intercourse I informed 
myself of all particulars relating to him 
and of his whole conduct, both in publick 
and private life, I am perhaps as well 
qualified as any man in England to draw 
a just character of him; and I impose this 
task on myself not only for the informa- 
tion of posterity, but for the sake of many 
worthy gentlemen whom I shall leave be- 
hind me, who are at present attached to 
his name, and who have formed their ideas 
of him from publick report, but more par- 
ticularly from tbos© threat actions which 
he performed in Scotland. As to his per- 
son, he is tall and welt-nude, but stoops 
a little, owing perhaps to the i>;reat fatigue 
which he underwent in his northern expe- 
dition. He has an handsome face and 
good eyes; (I think* his busts, which 

# He came one evening to my lodgings and drank 
tea with me : my servant, after he was gone, said to 
me, " that he thought my new visitor very like 
Prince Charles." " Why," said I, " hove you ever 
seen Prince Charles ?" " No, sir," replied the fellow, 
"but this gentleman, whoever he may be, exactly re- 
sembles the busts which are sold in Red-Iion-street, 

13* 



1.50 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

about this time were commonly sold in 
London, are more like him than any of his 
pictures which I have yet seen;) but in a 
polite company he would not pass for a 
genteel man. He hath a quick apprehen- 
sion, and speaks French, Italian, and En- 
glish, the last with a little of a foreign ac- 
cent. As to the rest, very little care 
seems to have been taken of his education. 
He had not made the belles lettres or any 
of the finer arts his study, which surpris- 
ed me much, considering his preceptors, 
and the noble opportunities he must have 
always had in that nursery* of all the ele- 
gant and liberal arts and science. But I was 
still more astonished, when I found him 
unacquainted with the history and const i- 

and are said to be the busls of Prince Charles." 
The truth is, these busts were taken in plaster of 
Paris from his face. 

* Rome. His governour was a protestant, and 1 
am apt to believe purposedly neglected his education, 
of which it is surmised he made a merit to the En- 
glish ministry : for he was always supposed to be 
their pensioner. The Chevalier Ramsay, the author 
of Cyius, was Prince Charles's preceptor for about a 
year; but a court faction removed him. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 151 

tution of England, in which he ought to 
have been very early instructed. I never 
heard him express any noble or benevo- 
lent sentiments, the certain indications of a 
great soul and a good heart ; or discover 
any sorrow or compassion for the misfor- 
tunes of so many worthy men who had 
suffered in his cause. # But the most odi- 
ous part of his character is his love of 
money, a vice which I do not remember to 
have been imputed by our historians to any 
of his ancestors, and which is the certain 
index of a base and little mind. I know 
it may be urged in his vindication, that a 
prince in exile ought to be an economist. 
And so he ought ; but nevertheless his 
purse should be always open, as long as 
there is any thing in it to relieve the 

* As to his religion, he is certainly free from all 
bigotry and superstition, and would readily conform 
to the religion of the country. With the caihoiicks 
he is a catholick ; with the protestants he is a pro- 
testant; and, to convince the latter of his sincerity, 
he often carried an English Common Prayer-book in 
his pocket : and sent to Gordon (whom I have men- 
tioned before), a nonjuring clergyman, to christen 
the first child he had by Mrs. W. 



152 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

necessities of his friends and adherents, 
King Charles the second, daring his ban- 
ishment, would have shared the last pis- 
tole in his pocket with his little family. 
But I have known this gentleman with 
two thousand Louis-d'ors in his strong box 
pretend he was in great distress, and 
borrow money from a Jady in Paris, who 
was not in affluent circumstances. His 
most faithful servant?, who had closely 
attended him in all his difficulties, were 
ill rewarded. Two Frenchmen, who had 
left every thing to follow his fortune, who 
had been sent a& couriers through half Eu- 
rope, and executed their commissions with 
great punctuality and exactness, were sud- 
denly discharged, without any faults im- 
puted to them, or any recompense for 
their past service. To this spirit of ava- 
rice may be added his insolent manner of 
treating his immediate dependants, very 
unbecoming a great prince, and a sure 
prognostick of what might be expected 
from him if ever he acquired sovereign 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 153 

power. Sir J. Harrington,* and f Col. 
Goring, who suffered themselves to be 
imprisoned with him, rather than desert 
him, when the rest of his family and atten- 
dants fled, were afterwards obliged lo quit 
his service on account of his illiberal be- 
haviour. But there is one part of his cha- 
racter, which 1 must particularly insist on, 
since it occasioned the defection of the 
most powerful of his friends and adherents 
in England, and by some concurring acci- 
dents totally blasted all his hopes and pre- 
tensions. When he was in Scotland, he 
had a mistress, whose name is Walken- 
shaw, and whose sister was at that time, 

* Sir J. Harrington remained in banishment till 
the accession of the present King George 111. No 
man is better acquainted with the private history 
and character of Prince Charles, and, if ever he reads 
what I have here written, I am confident that he 
will readily vouch the truth of my narrative. 

f GoRrNG, upon quitting his service, was recom- 
mended by my Lord Marshal to the King of Prus- 
sia, who immediately gave him a command in his 
army, equal to his pretensions. Goring died soon 
after, and his loss was greatly lamented by his Prus- 
sian Majesty, who honoured him with a character 
in a letter to my Lord Marshal. 



154 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

and is still, housekeeper at Leicester House. 
Some years after he was released from 
his prison, and conducted out of France, he 
sent for this girl, who soon acquired such 
a dominion over him, that she was ac- 
quainted with all his schemes, and trusted 
with his most secret correspondence. As 
soon as this was known in England, all 
those persons of distinction, who were at- 
tached to him, were greatly alarmed ; they 
imagined that this wench had been placed 
in his family by the English ministers; and, 
considering her sister's situation, they 
seemed to have some ground for their 
suspicion ; wherefore they dispatched a 
gentleman to Paris, where the prince then 
was, who had instructions to insist that 
Mrs. Walkenshaw should be removed to 
a convent for a certain term ; but her gal- 
lant absolutely refused to comply with 
this demand; and although Mr. M'Nama- 
ra, the gentleman who was sent to him, 
who has a natural eloquence, and an ex- 
cellent understanding, urged the most co- 
gent reasons, and used all the arts of per- 
suasion to induce him to part with his 
mistress, and even proceeded so far as to 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 155 

assure him, according to his instructions, 
that an immediate interruption of all 
correspondence with his most powerful 
friends in England, and, in short, lhat 
the ruin of his interest, which was now 
daily increasing, would be the infalli- 
ble consequence of his refusal; yet he 
continued inflexible, and all M'JNama- 
ra's intreaties and remonstrances were 
ineffectual. M'Namara staid in Paris some 
days beyond the time prescribed him, en- 
deavouring to reason the Prince into a bet- 
ter temper ; but finding him obstinately 
persevere in his first answer, he took his 
leave with concern and indignation, saying, 
as he passed out, " what has your family 
done, Sir, thus to draw down the vengeance 
of Heaven on every branch of it through 
so many ages?" It is worthy of remark, 
that in all the conferences which M'Nama- 
ra had with the Prince on this occasion, the 
latter declared, that it was not a violent 
passion, or indeed any particular regard,* 

* I believe he spoke truth when he declared he had 
no esteem for his northern mistress, although she has 
been bis com anion for so many years. She had no 
elegance of manners : and as they had both contract- 



156 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

which attached him to Mrs. Walkenshaw, 
and that he could see her removed from 
him without any concern ; but he would 
not receive directions in respect to his pri- 
vate conduct from any man alive. When 
M'Namara returned to London, and re- 
ported the Prince's answer to the gentle- 
men 1 * who had employed him, they were 

ed an odious habit of drinking, so (hey exposed them- 
selves very frequently, not only to their own family, 
but to all their neighbours. They often quarrelled 
and sometimes fought : they were some of these 
drunken scenes which, probably, occasioned the re- 
port of his madness. 

* These were all men of fortune and distinction, 
and many of them persons of the first quality, who 

attached themselves to as to a person who, 

they imagined, might be made the instrument of sav- 
ing their country. Th«y were sensible, that by 
Walpole's administration the English government 
was become a system of corruption, and that Wal- 
pole's successors, who pursued his plan without any 
of his abilities, had reduced us to such a deplorable 
situation, that our commercial interest was sinking, 
our colonies in danger of being lost, and Great Bri- 
tain, which, if her powers were properly* exerted, 
was able to give laws to other nations, was become 
the contempt of all Europe. 

* As they were afterwards in Mr. Pitt's administration. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 157 

astonished and confounded. However, they 
soon resolved on the measures which they 
were to pursue for the future, and deter- 
mined no longer to serve a man who could 
not be persuaded to serve himself, and chose 
rather to endanger the lives of his best and 
most faithful friends, than part with an har- 
lot, whom, as he often declared, he neither 
loved nor esteemed. If ever that old adage 
Quos Jupiter vult perdere, &c. could be pro- 
perly applied- to any person, whom could it 
so wrll fit as the gentleman of whom 1 have 
been speaking? for it is difficult by any 
Other means to account for such a sudden 
infatuation. # He was, indeed, soon after- 

* He was soon made acquainted with the defection 
which immediately followed upon the report of his 
answer. He endeavoured to excuse himself by blam- 
ing the gentleman who had been sent to him ; he 
pretended the message had not been properly deliv- 
ered, that he had been treated rudely and insolently, 
&c. But this was not the case. Mr. M'Namara ad- 
dressed him in the most respectful manner, and though 
he spoke firmly, as he knew the consequence of the 
Prince's refusal, yet he could not have treated him 
with more deference if he had been on the throne. The 
Prince's accusation of M'Namara was very unjust, 
as well as ungrateful, for M'Namara had been ofteu 
14 



153 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

wards made sensible of his misconduct, 
when it was too late to repair it : for from 
this era may truly be dated the ruin of his 
cause ; which, for the future, can only sub- 
sist in the N — n — ing congregations, which 
are generally formed of the meanest peo- 
ple, from whom no danger to the present 
government need ever be apprehended. 
Before I close this article, I must observe, 
that during this transaction, my Lord 

M was at Paris in the quality of 

Envoy from the K ofP ; M<- 

Namara had directions to acquaint him 

with his commission: my Lord M 

not in the least doubting the Prince's com- 
pliance with the request of his friends in 

England, determined to quit the K of 

P 's service as soon as his embassy was 

finished, and go into the Prince's family. 
This would have been a very fortunate cir- 
cumstance to the Prince on all accounts, 
but more especially as nothing could be 
more agreeable to all those persons of fig- 
ure and distinction, who were at that time 

with him, and had served him with great zeal and 
fidelity on many important occasions, both at home 
and abroad. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 159 

so deeply engaged in his cause; for there 
was not one of all that number who would 
not have reposed an entire confidence in the 

honour and discretion of my Lord M . 

But how was this gentleman amazed, when 
he perceived the Prince's obstinacy and 
imprudence? who was resolved, by a strange 
fatality, to alienate the affections of his best 
friends, and put an absolute barrier to all 
his own hopes. From this time my Lord 

M would never concern himself in 

this cause ; but prudently embraced the 

opportunity, through the K of P 's 

interest, of reconciling himself to the Eng- 
lish government. 

Since I wrote this article, I have met 
with a pamphlet lately published (1762) 
in French, entitled, Testament Politique du 
Marechal Due de Belleisle. The author 
of this work is said to be the present wri- 
ter of the Brussels Gazette : he pretends 
to know, that when the French had resolv- 
ed on the expedition against Minorca, the 
command of their troops was offered to 
Prince Charles, which he refused, complain- 
ing of his imprisonment in Ihe Castle of 
Vincennes, et finit par me dire (says Mr. 



160 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Belleisle) que less Anglois lui rendroient 
justice, s'ils le jugeoient a propos; tnais 
qu'il ne vouloit plus etre leur epouvantail. 
I can scarce believe the command of this 
expedition was ever offered to Prince 
Charles ; hut if it were, I can easily believe 
that his answer was such as this author has 
reported ; for he had often declared to his 
friends, after the ill treatment which he 
had received from the court of France, 
that he never would accept of any of- 
fers which that court might hereafter 
make him, which never had any real inten- 
tion to at! ve biro, hut only to use him oc- 
casionally as their instrument, and to sac- 
rifice him to their own interest. He knew 
enough of the history of his family to have 
learnt this truth, and he had on two or three 
occasions experienced it in himself. 

SOMNIUM ACADEMICI ALTERUM. JYllhi 

denuo sit propitia Mnemosyne animumre- 
vocanti ad earum rerum memoriam, quibus 
ipse interfui, quum nocte hesterna nescio 
quomodo, peregre abirem, et in iis er r 
rarem regionibus, quae sola Morphei ditione 
gubernantur : Ubi Deus ille ita apte forrnas 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 161 

personasque omnes sibi induit, aliisque 
imponit, uti re vera eos esse, qui simulan- 
tur, Deos atque homines putemus. Et 
mehercule hand fere quisquam mortalium 
aut ioimortalium, praeter Pseudo-Amphy- 
trionem et Sosiam suum, histrioniam uspi- 
am gentium visus est exquisitius facere. 
Vellem etiam mihi propitias esse Musas et 
Apollinem, non multum aut nihil omnino, 
quo, poetaium celeberrimorum ritu, iis 
molestus essem, et centum ora linguasque 
aut aliquid magnum postularem. Sed 
utinam sic agerem, ut mihi potestatem 
Musse coneedant transformandi ineptos 
quosdam scriptoies aliosque viros imp.ro- 
bos oh academiae nostrae inimicissimos, in 
picas aut porcos ; utque sagittifer ille 
###### certa spicuia aut tela acutiora 
ex pharetra aut armamentario suo de~ 
prompta mihi donet, quo aliquando arceam 
a sedibus hisce ornatissimis et libertatis 
aede magnam istam et perjuram delator um 
et ardelionum nationem. Quod ad hodier- 
nam disputationem attinet, satis mihi cau~ 
turn fuisse spero, quod Latiali sermone 
usus sum, quern quidem nequeunt expo- 
14* 



162 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

nere, fortasse ne quidemlegere ^Blacones 
isti, qui oplimatibus nostris se magnifice 
jaclant, ostenlantque, quosque scio jam 
polliciluros se quam sagaeissime odorari 
posse quid et ipse sentiam, et tola haec 
fabula velit. 

Quum Junii Calendis MDCCLX iter 
ad provinciam Cantii facerem et jam ad- 
vesperasceret, in diversorio celebriet lauto 
decrevi requiescere. Ibi in ties incicii ex 
familiaribus meis, viros nobiles, eruditos, 
face t os ; qui omni sua comitate me com- 
plexi, ad coenam quam apparari jusserant, 
quam humanissime invilabant. Inter to 
enandum me evocavit rusticns quidam 
facie rubicunda, laiis humeris, cruribus 
ocreatis, et russeis vestibus indutiis, qui 
dexteram meam prehendens digito auricu- 

* Blacojnes apud Anglos sunt infames delatores, 
gigantum filii; quos nafina malevolos spes praemii 
induxit in summum sceius : qui quum castos et in- 
tegerrimos viros accusare soleant, omnia confingunt, 
et non modo perjuria sua vendunt, verum etiam alios 
impeliuntad pejerandum. Nomen sumunt a Blacow 
quodam sacerdoie, qui ob nefarias suas delaliones 
donatus est canonicatu Vindsoriensi a regni praefecto 
D. de N. Quanta heu v heu, iSlo tempore fuerunt see* 
lerum praemia ! 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 163 

lari aptavit ferreum annukun, inquiens, I« 
hoc salus: dumque rogo, Quid istiic 
verbi est? fugil, evanuit. Redeo ad coe- 
nam, narro omnia : vident amiei. requi- 
runtque, ut annulum inspicianf, quern 
quum ter et amplius dedigilo conatus sum 
detrahere, neque id sumtna vi efikere po- 
tui, subita supers! itio mentem meam occu- 
pavil, quasi ab hoe conatu quodam numine 
repulsus essem. Alque hoc prodigio ila 
comraoveor (quod vero adjuvit hilaritatem 
comitom meorum) ut ne verbum quidcm 
adjkere po?sem, et nescio quid triste ex- 
pectarem. Itaque, cum opportunum erat 
tempus, cubitum discessi, et site ex moes- 
titia sive ex lassitudine, arctius dorwivi, 
neque postero die nisi post horatn nonam 
experrectus sum. Interea autem qua3 
pericula subii! quae maria transii! quas 
regiones peragravi ! quos homines, quos 
deos adii, cognovit Vix enim obrepserat 
somnus, quum in mari Atlantico naviga- 
bam velis plenissimis. Puppis erat fngehs, 
valida, deaurata, tam pedestribus quam 
navalibus copiis in struct a. Miratus sor- 
tem meam dum ex nautis quaere re coepi, 
cujus esset navigium, et quo tenderet, in 



164 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

me torve intuens praefectus navis peregri- 
na veste indutum, rogavit, Qui, et unde 
ipse essem, et cujus ope, et quo animo 
navem conseenderem omnino nullo diplo- 
mats munitus. Cumque obstupui, nee 
quid responderem, inveni, me quasi cu- 
riosum speculatorem cujus capite navis 
deberet lustrari, in mare ejici jussit. Illi- 
co me aggrediuntur tres quatuorve ex 
nautis robustioribus, et frustra clamantem 
me innoxium esse nimis inhumaniter eji- 
ciunt. At quae mira jam in mari sunt 
facta cum meo magno commodo ! milri 
adfuit cadenti ipse Triton, meque in vici- 
nia mortis qi»am humanissime accepit, et 
in curru suo, aifabre quidem facto ea con- 
cha splendidissima, collocavit. Currum 
trahebant equi marini, quorum vim ac 
celeritatem prsecipue sum admiratus : na- 
bant enim seu volitabant aura ocyus. Ne- 
que vero Jonas in cetis ventre latitans, ne- 
que Arion delphino insidens, aut Europa 
tauri dorso tutius navigabant. Interea me 
docuit Triton de ferrei annuli virtute et 
potentia, deinde quo mei causa dirigeret 
iter, ad insulam scilicet Neptuno sacram 
in primis, nobile solum, et cui me credere 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 165 

possein, si literarum colerem studia, aut 
siquid negotiations genus mihi placeret. 
Dum benignitati Dei marini gratias ago, 
ad littus deferimur. Protinus ego in 
terram desilio, et Triton ter et amplius 
mihi vale dicens in mare revertitur. Ut 
me adspexerunt fustic! quidam in littore 
spatiantes, barbaro suo more cuncti pro- 
currunt, mea omnia quasi certissimam 
prsedam sibi proponentes. Dumque in 
me impetum facere conantur, subito pro- 
pe astant immobiles deinde, ianquam ter- 
rore panico concitati, lerga vertunt, et 
aufugiunt. Haud procul vidi mediocre 
diversorium, ubi nautse et piscatores totos 
dies potabant. Hie cibo meroque post- 
quam corpus curavi, curru quadrigarum 
conductitio vectus sum ad urbem, quam 
Argentariam vocant, insula? caput. Ut 
urbem intravi, cernere erat ad dextram 
templum magnificentissimum, ornatissi- 
mum. E curru descend! curiosus spec- 
tator, et servis equisque prsemissis ad 
templi porticum accessi. In re placide 
ambulantem aspicio senem quendam vul~ 
tu lseto et florido, purpurea veste indu- 
tum. Saluto bominem quasi peregre 



166 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

adveniens, sciscitorque cujus haec sit aedes 
splendidissima, et cui Deo dicata. O hos- 
pes, inquit purpuratus, hsec est aedes Divi 
Augusti Gondiberti, qui nuper in coe- 
him abiit. Si quaeris, Quid ille hominis 
fuerit, aut quid meritus sit, ut tanti habi- 
tet, en ejus effigiem. Haec locutus sinis- 
tram prehendit, cneque in templum duxit, 
ubi in medio positam statuam Gocdiberti 
inauratam vidi, cujus in basi hoc elogium 
erat ineisum : 

Sacrum. Esto. 

Divo. Augusto. Gondiberto. Secundo. 

Argentariae. Regi. Sapieniissimo. 

Imperatori. Fortissimo. Invictissimo. Clementissimo. 

Germnnico. Asi itico Africano. Americano. 

Pio. F oili. ^ucundo. Magnanirao. 

Cultori. O^limamm. Artium. Assiduo. 

Patrono. Literaiorum. Omaium. Munificentissimo. 

Omnibus Amicissimo. 

Omnibus. Dileclissimo. 

Palriae. et Llbertatis. Parenti. 

Et. Seculi. Sui. Decori. et. Ornamento. 

Jaraque paratus et ipse eram Gondiberti 
memoriam venerari, cum in aedem introiit 
Stoicus quidam calvus, gravis, severus, vir- 
gulam divinam in manu gestans; qui in me 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 167 

intuens, Cave, inquit, hospes, temere cre- 
das speciosae huic inscriptioni. Divus sit, 
necne, defunctus, sane nescio : at cujusmo- 
di fuerit homo, probe scio, et faciam, ut 
tu scias. Tunc virgula feriens statuse 
basin, de improviso immiitatiitii est et 
evanuit magnificum istud elogium, et hoc 
alteruui pro eo est substitutum. 

Hie situs est, 

Qui dictis et incessu semper patuit 

Mil.es Gloriosus ; 

Sed rei militaris scientiae seque ac artium liberaliura 

Omnino omnium ignarus. 

Nescitur quo malo fato, fuit eheu ! potentissimus; 

Sed injustus, superbus, sordidus, inhumanus. 

Laudum cupidissimus 

Se Laude summa dignum existimavit. 

At vixit quamvis annos plus septuaginta, 

Haud quidquam unquam fecit (acinus laudabile. 

Nemini cuiquam amatus 

Neminem quemquam, praeter seipsum, amavit, 

Ne quidem liberos, aut nepotes. 

Sexcenta millia auri pondo corrasit, 

Non hostes, sed suos opprimendo, et spoliando. 

Nam ardenti fuit avaritia, 

Et auri usque ad furorem appetens; 

Quod unum vigilans, somnians 

Cogitabat, quaerebat, admirabatur, venerabatur. 

Et mehercule si Mida rex fuisset, 



168 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Nunquam suum damnasset votum 

Sed, sacculis inhians, laetus periisset 

Aurum creando. 

Paulo inferius hoc praeterea in eodem 
basi, sed literis majusculis inscriptum no- 
tavi : 

Qui veritatem amas, et quaeris, 

En tibi Elogium sane verissimum ! 

Tu vero, 

Cui militi huic glorioso concessum est 

Succedere, 

Tui, et patriae causa sis ei quam dissimillimus ! 

Teque memineris 

Neque Deum esse, neque lupum, 

Sed Hominem. 

Iterum iterumque hoc epigramma oculis 
intentis conlemplatus sum, et vix mihi 
persnasum est ila ea prorsus esse quae 
vidi, legi, et relegi : usque adeo magica 
baec transmutatio mihi admirationem mo- 
vit. Jamque circumspiciens quaerebam 
senem purpuratum, qui primum in hanc 
aedem me invilabat. Stoieus veto, frustra, 
inquit, purpuratum quaeris. Vt enim 
introii, ille se ex aede proripuit, conspec- 
tum meum veritus, et hujus virgulae virtu- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 169 

tem ; quae falsas historias, et mendacia im- 
pudentiora levi tactu obliterat et abradit, 
et Tanas esse, uti cernis, omnes eas praedi- 
cationes, quae Gondibertum nostrum in 
deorum numerum retulere. 

CONTINUATIO ET SERIES RERUM SIVE FAB- 
ULARUM SOMNIO AcADEMICI ANNECTENDA. 

Quid autem isthuc, inquam, obsecro, est 
negotii, aut cujusce modi homo is est, qui 
me quam familiariler in hoc fanum invita- 
vit, quique, ut te conspicatus est, virgulam 
tuam divinam in manu gestantem, repente 
aufugit. Isle, ait Stoicus, vir est magni 
nominis. Sub regno Gondiberti II di . regni 
fuil prsefectus, et nisi a gubernaculis reipub- 
licae tandem deject us fuisset, maximum me- 
hercule non modo ab hostium vi, sed ab 
universo naufragio nobis esset periculum. 
Hand dissimilis est ei Suecico senatori et 
praefecto, quern in notis ad Perils Epis- 
tolam penicillo tuo scite pinxisti. Nunc 
vero, septuagenarius quamvis, sortis suae 
impatiens, et vita privata et quieta minime 
contentus, novas res molitur, et qui patriae 
semper pessime consuluit, nunciterum per 
bono rum omnium proscriptiones ad regni 
15 



IfO DR, KING'S ANECDOTES 

praefecturam aspirat. Inter haec, quae de 
Argentariae statu me docebat Stoicus, in 
templum introiit pontifex maximus pur- 
pura et auro nitens, magna procerum coc- 
cineis vestibus indutorum comitante cater- 
va ; qui ut consedere (iis enim omnibus 
subsellia destinabantur) aream lempli et 
porticum implebant inferioris ordinis cives. 
Ego invitatus a templi custodibus inter lios- 
pites et peregrinos, qui ex more civitatis 
humanissime accipiebantur, satis commode 
sedebam, cumque, quid agendum esset, 
sciscitabar, in rostrum ascendit senex oclo- 
genarius, calvus, decrepitus, quern, accla- 
mante ccetu, ila locutum fuisse bene me- 
mini. Orationem hodie habiturus iis baud 
dissimilis videor, qui quum longinquum 
iter facere cogitant, idque negotia quae- 
dam nee opinata de die in diem impedie- 
rint, amicos et propinquos iterum arces- 
sere, iterum amplexari, et quibus jam novo 
valedixerunt, iterum valedicere solent. At 
vero in hunc locum me invitum ascendisse 
fateor ; quippe sentio, quam animi vires 
perinde atque corporis me deficiant, et ve- 
reor ut eas, quas suscepi partes implere> 
aut quippiam ccetu hoc illustrissimo dig- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 17 1 

num proferre possim. Quid autem face- 
rem ! mihi hoc mandavit officium 

ita ut neque deprecalioni esset lo- 
cus, neque aetatis excusatione liceret uti. 
Quarnobrem vos oro, ut extremo 

huic sermoni meo veniani delis : Yeniam a 
vobis pro laude peto. Caetera quidem 
petenda sunt a libero illo spiritu, qui in 
difficillimo meo tempore semper mihi ad- 
fuit, et nunc adest ; qui neque potentissi- 
morum hominum gratiam quaerit, neque 
novam optimatum factionem colit, neque 
populi furorem metuit, neque quid veii 
dicere non audet pro patria, pro pro 

salute communi causam diet urus. Cum per 
annos plus quadraginta regni praefecti, sed 
homines iniquissimi banc civilatem, banc 
Musarum domum, opprimere sunt aggressi, 
quam exterminandam vellent, earn hodie 
non modo salvam sed florentem videmus : 
utque auspicatius sermonem meum insti- 
tuam, In sternum floreat! Cui vero 
fortunam nostram, et hodiernam felicita- 
tem debeamus, neminem fugit. Ille enim 
princeps serenissimus, atque idem hostis et 
victor aequissimus, postquam christiano or- 
bi pacem dederat, nos et patriis juribus, et 



172 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

perfecta libertate, et olio hoc literato vo- 
luit et jussit frui. Ecquis autem putaret, 
ecquis non doleret repertos esse ex incolis 
nostris, qui res prosperas et fortunatum 
hunc reipublicae statum minime possint pa- 
ti? JXonne videtur antiqua ea hujus insulae 
feroeitas et barbaries rediisse, et quorum- 
dam eivium mores penilus imbuisse, qui 
bell urn, caedes et rapinas, concordiae tran- 
quillitati, et saluti communi anteferendas 
esse censeant ? A quo fonte derivata sint 
haec mala sub regno principis mitissimi 
justissimique, quod quidem posteris quasi 
monstri simile videbitur, Vos non 

jgnoratis. En enim quasi altera conjura- 
tio Catilinaria ! Sunt ex ipsis senatoribus, 
quos trahit ambitio, sunt quos urget avari- 
ties, sunt quos impellit egestas, omnes pes* 
simo ingenio usos. Hi imprimis libertatem 
publicam, quae in rebus omnibus modera- 
tionem servare debet, esse asserunt quod- 
cunque sibi (at sibi solis) facere libeat. 
Hinc regis acta et senatus consulla palam 
calumniantur, et criminantur. Hinc impe- 
ritum vulguset Argentariae faecem aut ver- 
borum praestigiis capiunt, aut Jargitioni- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 173 

bus corrumpunt. Hinc impudentissime 
postulant per oratorem suum, ut summa 
re rum et negotiorum omnium potestas sibi 
suisque tradatur, et nihil regi praeter no- 
men inane maneat. Hinc denique antiques 
et semper venerandae gentis religioni, 
atque (O infandum !) ipsi Deo maledi- 
eere audent. Supervacaneum esset vos 
hortari (quorum virtutes et prudenlia ad- 
hortationes minime desiderant) ut nequis 
vest rum huic factioni accedat, aut cum 
hisce seditionis auctoribus amicitia aut 
hospitio conjungatur : at mehercule di- 
ligenter caveri oportet, ut nequis vir 
bonus specie recti decipiatur ; quippe 
adversarii nostri, dum res novas moli- 
untur, et unum hoc cogitant, quo modo 
regem et rempublicam possint opprimere, 
de fide et virtute sua gloriantur, seque im- 
primis studere fingunt, ut populi liberta- 
tem, et jura Jegesque nostras tueantur. 
Vos autem, Juvenes praecipue 

cautos esse velim, ne adolescentia vest 1 a, 
quae minime est suspicax, horum hominum 
fallaciis et simulationibus circumveniatur. 
Opto et spero, ut bonam earn indolem, 
integritatem et ingenium, quae hodie hujus 
15* 



174 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

loci praefectis vos commendant, in omni 
vita, inque negotiis cumdomesticis turn 
publicis semper obtineatis. Sunt ex vobis 
qui in Senatum magnum cooptentur ; sunt 
qui fortasse sint primores regni: quae for- 
tuna si vobis contigerit, turn vero maxime 
dignitati et existimationi vestrae consulere 
oportebit : turn praeterea omnibus constet 
eum vobis insitum esse amorem patriae et 
moderationem animi, ut neque mali quaes- 
tus neque malae ambitionis causa vos 
reipublicae unquam defuturi sitis. Saepe 
ego miratus sum (ut antea dixi) ex popu- 
laribus nostris inveniri, qui bellum ini- 
quutn quam pacem malunt bonestissimam, 
at mehercule multo magis miror et indig- 
nor homines hosce gloriosos cives esse ig- 
navissimos et luxu diffluentes, qui baud 
unquam rebus suis consulunt, quo scilicet 
omnia turbent et pessime de republica 
mereantur, nisi inter ccenandum et potan- 
dum. Quid vero si in eorum mores et 
animum propius inspiceres ? nonne statim 
exclamares, Quam turpe foedus! quam 
perversa conjunctio ! quam discors con- 
cordia! Siquidem ex hujus factionis prin- 
cipibus quamvis neminemquemquam cog- 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 175 

noveris, quin is ceteros omnes, socios scili- 
cet suos et con vivas quotidianos prorsus 
contemnat et odio habeat; quodcunque 
tamen quis sentiat contra reinpublicam, 
idem omnes sentiunt. Huic conventui 
factioso sese socium et consiiiarium addidit 
Argentariae praetor vir sordidissimus. Is, 
ut non nullius pretii inter suos habeatur 
totius Senatus auctorilatem, qui uno ore 
bonis quibusdam civibus . ob merita in 
rempublicam gratias agendas esse decreve- 
rat, in curia negotiatorum, qua est impu- 
dentia, voce sua damnare haud dubitavit. 
Oquam fortunala esset respublica, si pauci 
ex sceleratissimis hisce senatoribus aliquo 
in exteras regiones possent extrudi ! Sed, 
quia libertatem semper in ore habent, quo 
machinationes suas et spem dominationis 
occultius celare queanl, et urbanae plebis 
clamoribus, et complurium civium, qui 
eorum consiliis favent, sententiis munili jus 
publicum violari quererentur, siquid gravi- 
us de flagitiis suis esset animadvertendum, 
idcirco rexmitissimus injurias maximas et 
contumelias maluit pati. # # # # # * 
Quae ullra mihi acciderunt, dum apud 
Argent aria m commoror, non est hodie 



176 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

tutus narrandi locus. Postheec videro, an 
ea satis commode possint dici. 

Oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et 
illis, is the sincere desire of many melan- 
choly heads which are to be found in the 
British dominions ; and therefore I have 
often wished, that when we reformed from 
popery, a few convents had been exempted 
from the general pillage, in which men of 
severe morals, or of a melancholy cast and 
turn of mind, might have found a retreat. 
But I have observed, what is perhaps pe- 
culiar to this island, that there are men 
wholly free from the spleen, or a lowness 
of spirits, in good health and good circum- 
stances, and only actuated by some whim- 
sical considerations, seek a retreat where 
they may forget their friends and relations, 
and be forgotten by them. About the 
year 1706, I knew one Mr. Howe, a sen- 
sible well-natured man, possessed of an 
estate of 700/. or 800/. per annum : he 
married a young lady of a good family in 
the west of England, her maiden name 
was Mallet; she was agreeable in her 
person aud manners, and proved a very 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. J 77 

good wife. Seven or ei^ht years after 
they had been married, he rose one morn- 
ing very early, and told his wife he was 
obliged to go to the Tower to transact 
some particular business: the same day, 
at noon, his wife received a note from 
him, in which he informed her that he was 
under a necessity of going to Holland, 
and should probably be absent three weeks 
or a month. He was absent from her 
seventeen years, during which time she 
neither heard from him, or of him. The 
evening before he returned, whilst she was 
at supper, and with her some of her friends 
and relations, particularly one Dr. Rose,* 
a physician, who had married her sister, 
a billet, without any name subscribed, was 
delivered to her, in which the writer re- 
quested the favour of her to give him a 
meeting the next evening in the Birdcage 
Walk, in St. James's Park. When she 
had read her billet, she tossed it to Dr. 

* I was very well acquainted with Dr. Rose ; he 
was of a French family. I often met him at King's 
Coffee-house, near Golden-square, and he frequently 
entertained me with this remarkable story. 



178 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

Rose, and laughing, " You see, brother," 
said she, " as old as I am, I have got a 
gallant." Hose, who perused the note 
with more attention, declared it to be Mr. 
Howe's hand-writing: this surprised all 
the company, and so much affected Mrs. 
Howe, that she fainted away; however, 
she soon recovered, when it was agreed 
that Dr. Rose and his wife, with the other 
gentleman and ladies who were then at 
supper, should attend Mrs. Howe the next 
evening to the Birdcage Walk : they had 
not been there more than five or six 
minutes, when Mr. Howe came to them, 
and after saluting his friends, and embrac- 
ing his wife, walked home with her, and 
they lived together in great harmony from 
that time to the day of his death. But 
the most curious part of my tale remains 
to be related. * When Howe left his 

* London is the only place in all Europe where a 
man can find a secure retreat, or remain, if he plea- 
ses, many years unknown. If he pays constantly 
for his lodging, for his provisions, and for whatsoever 
else he wants, nobody will ask a question concern- 
ing him, or inquire whence he comes, whither he 
sroes, &c. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 1T9 

wife, they lived in a house in Jenny n- 
street, near Si. James's church ; he went 
no farther than to a little street in West- 
minster, where he took a room, for which 
he paid five or six shillings a week, and 
changing his name, and disguising himself 
by wearing a black wig (for he was a fail- 
man), he remained in this habitation dur- 
ing the whole time of his absence. He 
had had two children by his wife when 
he departed from her, who were both liv- 
ing at that time : but they both died young 
in a few years after. However, during 
their lives, the second or third year after 
their father disappeared, Mrs. Howe was 
obliged to apply for an act of parliament 
to procure a proper settlement of her 
husband's estate, and a provision for her- 
self out of it during his absence, as it was 
uncertain whether he was alive or dead : 
this act he suffered to be solicited and 
passed, and enjoyed the pleasure of read- 
ing the progress of it in the votes, in a 
little coffee-house, near/his lodging, which 
he frequented. Upon his quitting his 
house and family in the manner I have 
mentioned, Mrs. Howe at first imagined, 



180 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

as she could not conceive any other cause 
for such abrupt elopement, that he had 
contracted a large debt unknown to her, 
and by that means involved himself in diffi- 
culties which he could not easily sur- 
mount; and for some days she lived in 
continual apprehensions of demands from 
creditors, of seizures, executions, &c. But 
nothing of this kind happened ; on the con- 
trary, he did not only leave his estate 
quite free and unencumbered, but he paid 
the bills of every tradesman with whom 
he had any dealings; and upon examining 
his papers, in due time after he was gone, 
proper receipts and discharges were found 
from all persons, whether tradesmen or 
others, with whom he had any manner of 
transactions or money concerns. Mrs. 
Howe, after the death of her children, 
thought proper to lessen her family of 
servants, and the expenses of her house- 
keeping; and therefore removed from her 
house in Jermyn-street to a little house 
in Brewer-street, near Golden-square. 
Just over against her lived one Salt,^ a 

* I knew Salt, whom I often met at a coffee- 
bouse called King's Coffee-house, near Golden-square. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 181 

corn-chandler. About ten years after 
Howe's abdication, he contrived to make 
an acquaintance with Salt, and was at 
length in such a degree of intimacy with 
him, that he usually dined with Salt once 
or twice a week. From the room in 
which they eat, it was not difficult to look 
into Mrs. Howe's dining-room, where she 
generally sate and received her com- 
pany ; and Salt, who believed Howe to be 
a bachelor, frequently recommended his 
own wife to him as a suitable match. Dur- 
ing the last seven years of this gentleman's 
absence, he went every Sunday to St. 
James's church, and used to sit in Mr. 
Salt's seat, where he had a view of his 
wife, but could not easily be seen by her. 
After he returned home, he never would 
confess, even to his most intimate friends, 
what was the real cause of such a singular 
conduct; apparently, there was none : but 
whatever it was, he was certainly ashamed 
to own it. Dr. Rose has often said to 

He related to me the particulars which I have here 
mentioned, and many others, which have escaped 
my memory, 

16 



182 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

me, that he believed his brother Howe* 
would never have returned to his wife, if 
the money which he took with him, which 
was supposed to have been 1000/. or 2000/. 
had not been all spent : and he must have 
been a good economist, and frugal in his 
manner of living, otherwise his money 
would scarce have held out; for I imagine 
he had his whole fortune by him, T mean 
what he carried away with him in money 
or bank bills, and daily took out of his bag, 
like the Spaniard in Gil Blas, what was 
sufficient for his expenses. 

Reverendo de grege porcum is an ex- 
pression used by Dr. John Burton, speak- 
ing of himself in a thing which he calls 
his Iter Sussexiense. This is borrowed, 
as we all know, from the Epicuri de grege 
porcum of Horace, which has been cen- 
sured by some criticks as a coarse expres- 

* And yet I have seen him after his return ad- 
dressing his wife in the language of a young bride- 
groom. And I have been assured by some of his 
most intimate friends, that he treated her during the 
rest of their lives with the greatest kindness and 
affection. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 183 

sion, and not agreeable to the usual polite- 
ness of the Roman poet ; bai it certainly 
ought to be censured with some severity, 
as applied by this reverend divine to him- 
self and the whole body of the clergy; 
for how are we to translate it, — one of the 
reverend herd of s nine ? or, in a more limit- 
ed manner, one of those clergymen who are 
hogs ? This is such an indecent, or rather 
such an infamous appellalion, that I scarce 
believe the most fiery sect a r is t among us, 
or the greatest enemy to prelacy and the 
Church of England, would dare to throw 
out; and there was a time when an author 
would have been degraded and expelled 
the order on which he had cast such an 
injurious reflection. It is no alleviation of 
this man's fault that he treats himself with 
the same freedom with which he treats his 
brethren : he best knows his own inclina- 
tions and the qualities both of his body 
and mind ; and whether they are properly 
designed by this metaphorical expression, 
which he has adopted from the Roman 
satirist, he is certainly the best judge. 
But may w 7 e not, therefore, without offence, 
or the breach of good manners, give him 



184 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

the name which he himself has assumed? 
and when he is instructing and admonish- 
ing the university (for all his sermons are 
in that strain,) would it he any improprie- 
ty to judge him out of his own mouth, 
and apply to him the old adage, bus Mi- 
nervam? With an head full of Latin and 
Greek, Burton uses both these languages 
with as little taste and judgment as a 
school-boy. 

Although I have been often prevailed 
on to write* a Latin epitaph, and have 
adhered, according to the best of my know- 
ledge or information, to the truth in these 
panegyrical characters (for de mortuis nil 
nisi bonum, however it may be condemned 

* I promised Nash, a few years before he died, 
that if I survived him, I would write his epitaph. 
I performed my promise, and in my description of 
this extraordinary phenomenon, I think I have 
written nothing but the truth ; one thing I omitted, 
which 1 did not reflect on until after the epitaph was 
printed, that a statue had been erected to him whilst 
he was living; and this great honour had been con- 
ferred on him with more justice than on any other of 
his contemporaries or brother kings. 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 185 

in history, has been an allowed maxim in 
all monumental inscriptions in these latter 
ages ;) yet this is a task which I have 
always very unwillingly undertaken. 1 
could wish we had not departed from the 
simplicity of the old Roman inscriptions ; 
for as our modern epitaphs consist general- 
ly of a string of fulsome praises, bestowed 
equally on the best and the worst, so they 
are generally disregarded, and if they are 
ever read, are read for the sake of the 
composition only. The dean and preben- 
daries of Westminster sell the sacred 
ground to any persons who think proper 
to purchase it ; no objection is made to 
the quality or character of those to whom 
a monument is to be erected under this 
holy roof: the peer and the player, the 
chaste and the unchaste, are here depo- 
sited without distinction. But if you ex- 
amine their characters, as those are here 
engraven on the monumental marble, you 
will not find one person amongst them all, 
who, when living, had not been endowed 
with the most eminent qualities both of 

body and mind. General who rose 

to his high post by such arts as are a dis- 



186 DR. KING'S ANECDOTES 

grace to human nature, appears in West- 
minster Abbey to have possessed as great 
talents and as many virtues as Scipio 
Africaivus. I have been often very un- 
deservedly abused, and crimes have been 
imputed to me, which, I thank God, my 
honest soul abhors : on the other hand, 
such praises have been frequently bestow- 
ed on me as I am conscious to myself I 
do not merit ; and I have on many occa- 
sions received an applause to which, I 
think, J was not entitled. Laudator ah 
his, culpatur ab Mis, will probably be my 
fate during my life : however, I would 
willingly, if I had power, after my death, 
prevent the eulogies of my friends, as well 
as the outrage of my enemies; and there- 
fore I offer both to one and the other the 
following epitaph or inscription : 

Fui 

Guilielmus King, LL. D. 

Ab anno MDCCXIX ad annum MDCCLX 

Aulas B. M. V. in Academia Oxon. Praefectus. 

Literis humanioribus a puero deditus, 

Eas usque ad supremum vitas diem colui. 

Neque vitiis carui, neque virtulibus, 

Imprudens et improvidus, comis et benevolus; 



OF HIS OWN TIMES. 18f 

Saepe aequo iracundior, 

Haud unquam ut essem implacabilis. 

A luxuria pariter ac avaritia 

(Quam non tarn vitium, 

Quam mentis insanitatem esse duxi) 

Prorsus abhorrens. 

Cives, hospites, peregrinos 

Omnino Jiberaliter accepi ; 

Ipse et cibi abstinentior, et vini abstinentissimus. 

Cum magnis vixi, cum plebeiis, cum omnibus, 

Ut homines noscerem, ut meipsum imprimis : 

Neque, eheu ! novi. 

Permultos habuiamicos, 

At veros, stabiles, gratos 

(Quae fortasse est gentis culpa) 

Perpaucissimos. 

Plures habui inimicos, 

Sed invidos, sed improbos, sed inhumanos : 

Quorum nullis tamen injuriis 

Perinde commotus fui, 

Quam deliquiis meis. 

Summam, quam adeptus sum, senectutem 

Neque optavi, neque accusavi, 

Vitae incommoda neque immoderate ferens, 

Neque commodis nimium contentus : 

Mortem neque contempsi, 

Neque metui. 

Deus Optime, 

Qui hunc orbem et humanas res curas, 

Miserere anima3 meae! 

THE END. 






The British Museum. 

* * * The British Museum was instituted in 
1753. The library, like most of the other departments 
of the institution, had its commencement in the ac- 
quisition of an extensive collection of manuscripts 
and printed works which belonged to Sir Hans 
Sloane, to a suggestion in whose will the origin of 
the Museum is to be ascribed. From its institution 
up to the present rime, it has been regularly increas- 
ing its stores of manuscripts and printed books. The 
principal source whence it receives its constant ad- 
ditions to its collection, is that of the privilege it has 
of demanding a copy of every new work published 
in the United Kingdom. This privilege was confer- 
red <m it in 1757, a few years after its institution, by 
George II. on which occasion that monarch present- 
ed the magnificem gift of the library of the Kings of 
England, which included the libraries of Henry Prince 
of Wales, Archbishop Cranmer, and other distin- 
guished individuals. 

Since that period, the library of the British Muse- 
um has been enriched by varionse gifts of splendid 
collections of works. I* 1763, George III. made it 
a present of a large collection of pamphlets and pub- 
lic papers, published during the eventful years which 
intervened between 1640 and 1660, whi^n collection 
had been commenced by Charles I. To the gift of 
the library of George III. consisting of ninety thou- 
sand volumes, made to the Museum in 1823, I have 
already referred- Besides these large presents, a 
great many literary men have left their valuable 
though mueh less extensive libraries to it. The 
number of books purchased by the trustees is incon- 
siderable, compared with the number which have 
been derived from the sources I have mentioned — 
In only a few cases have private libraries been pur- 
chased. Until within the last few years the average 
annual amount of money expended on books for the 
British Museum did not exceed £200; within five or 
six years it has been about .£1.000. This parsimony 
in the purchase of books for such an institution as 
the British Museum, is unworthy this great nation. 

An impression is pretty generally entertained that 
the library of the British Museum is the mo« exten- 
sive and valuable extant. I wish, for the honor of 
the country, the impression were a correct one; un- < 
fortunately, however, it is n<H so. There are no 
fewer than nine libraries in Europe more valuable 
and extensive than the national library of G. Britain. 
The King's library, in Paris, by far the largest in the 
world, contains no fewer than 700,000 volumes. — 
Even the library of Munich, a place of which one 
seldom hears, can boast of its 500,000 volumes- What 
may appear still more surprising. Russia, barbarous 
and despotic as that country always has been, has its 
400,000 volumes in the national library at St- Peters- 
burgh. Copenhagen, too. has an equally extensive 
library. Vienna estimates the namber of volumes in 
its library at 35<»,000; while Naples, Dresden, and 
Gottingen, severally lay claim to 300,000 volumes.— 
Lastly, there is Berlin, with 250,000 volumes; while 
the British Mvseum can boast of no more than 240,- 
000 volumes.— London Metropolitan. 



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